One or two-day tour which covers best part of Tokyo with your personal guide who will give you neutral advice. Even if you are a first timer in Tokyo, you can visit locations of your choice; Asakusa, Tsukiji outer market, Kagurazaka Geisha District, Shinjuku Gyoen, Hamarikyu garden, Imperial Palace East Garden, Meiji Shrine, Harajuku / Omote-Sando , Shibuya crossing, Yanaka waking, teamLab, Ghibli Museum (advance ticket reservation by travelers required) or Tokyo National Museum.
At your hotel or JR or Subway Stations
Museum is closed on Monday.
advance on-line ticket reservation by travelers required
Studio Ghibli Museum is 15 minutes walk through Inokashira Park from Kichijyoji station.
Reasonably priced jazz live house located west side of Tokyo, 20 minutes train ride from Shinjuku or Shibuya station.
advance ticket reservation by travelers required at least one month prior to the planned visit
Gardens of former Edo Castle offer seasonal flowers and original moats, walls, entrance gates and guardhouses built by the Tokugawa shoguns. The Gardens are closed on very Monday and Friday (open on National Holiday except the Emperor's Birthday, February 23)
In the event that a National Holiday falls on a Monday, the Gardens will be closed on the Tuesday immediately following the National Holiday. Also closed from December 28 to January 3
The Stairs exist in the middle of Tokyo.
You can find Chopstic shops, food sample shops, Japanese kitchen knife shops, ceramic shops and/or everthing related with Kithen in Kappabashi.
At your hotel or JR or Subway Stations
guide fee, hotel pick-up within walking distance from Shibuya/ Shijuku stations
・transportaion fee (you and guide)---Tokyo Subway 24-hour Ticket – Adult: 600 yen~800 yen
・lunch,
・entrance fee (if applicable)
・overtime guide fee (if applicable) $50/hour, $30/half hour
・hotel pick-up fee $10 outside Shibuya/ Shijuku station areas
Born and raised in Niigata prefecture, visit my mother and sister who live in Niigata city every month from Tokyo. Niigata has lots of attractions for tourists, including Yahiko Shrine/suspension cable car ride to the top of Mt. Yahiko, Northern Culture Museum where you can see the richest farmer's residence and garden, sake breweries with free sake tasting, castle towns like Shibata city or Murakami city, winter ski resorts with four meters of snow, delicious local sea food from Sea of Japan or from Sado Island/ fruits and brown edamame. It takes only two hours by Shinkansen train to reach Niigata from Tokyo.
Niigata prefecture and Niigata city each has a population of 2.3 Million and 0.8 Million, good sizes but much smaller than Tokyo, the biggest city area in the world. By experiencing both Tokyo on the Pacific Ocean side and Niigata on the Sea of Japan side, you can taste both modern gigantic city life/culture and traditional city/rural life/culture in Japan.
In addition to Greater Tokyo Area where I live, I will be happy to be your guide in any cities/areas on the Sea of Japan side as well.
My tour destinations outside Greater Tokyo area include Niigata-city, Nagaoka -city, Itoigawa-city, Sado island, Nagano city, Snow Resorts in Niigata and Nagano mountain areas, Yamagata city, Tsuruoka city, Sakata city, Kanazawa city, Oono city, Echizen city, Tsuruga city, Fukui city, Gokayama and Shirakawago which are World Heritage sites famous for Gassho-zukuri and Kyoto/Nara.
By engaging a professional tour guide, you would feel that you have an old friend in Japan showing you around Tokyo.
If you have your personal interests, you do not have to follow standard attractions and I will be happy to customize tour for you.
It is best to visit and see what you are interested in and spend as much time as you want. You have a CHOICE as this is your tour.
You can also obtain useful advice on how to use public transportation, shopping, choice of restaurant.
During the tour, you can ask any qusetions which normal guide will hesitate to even talk about.
Tokyo Subway 24-hour Ticket will take you most of the places and costs 600yen per adult, whic is a very good deal in Town.
Yoshi is a great tour guide who knows the Nikko area well. He accommodated our late schedule and vegetarian restaurant need. Even though we started late, we visited all the places we had hoped for. Yoshi is very knowledgeable about all the sites and explains the history of those sites well. We visited Nikko during hot summer days and ended up using taxis everywhere. We wish we had planned this taxi time better, but nevertheless, our journey was memorable. I recommend Yoshi to anyone looking for a tour guide to visit Nikko. Thanks Yoshi.
You and your family must have returned home in California safely before Typhoon 17th lands in Japan. It was a pleasure traveling to Nikko area with your family. Please visit Japan again to see cherry flowers or Autumn colors.
Our family hired Yoshi to take us around the first day we arrived in Tokyo. Prior to our trip, he was extremely responsive and attentive to our wishes. He helped us put together a tailored itinerary as we wanted to visit some of the non-touristy places. Our favorite part of the day was when Yoshi found a special place based on an anime movie my son loves and we got to visit it! Then Yoshi found us a great sushi restaurant in a small town at the last minute! Thank you Yoshi for sharing your expertise, sense of humor and time. Also, thank you for showing us how to use the subway - we used it all week! Great start to an amazing vacation!!
You must have safely arrived home and hopefully had an opportunity to watch the Japanese anime movie together with your son. It was a pleasure touring with Pamela san, her husband and a son who are all very close each other. Next time your family comes to Japan, I will reserve a very good sushi restaurant that I know well.
We had the best day touring around Tokyo with Yoshi! He was so fun and personable, we really hit it off with him! He happily toured our party of 7 around at lightening speed hitting all the hot spots. We got so much in and still had time for a lovely tea ceremony at Nakajima Teahouse and then an impromptu lunch at Dynamic Kitchen & Bar HIBIKI, which to our surprise was on the 49th floor and had magnificent views of Tokyo! All in all, Yoshi was a superb tour guide, very knowledgeable! We saw and learned so much and would certainly book Yoshi again on any future trips!
The fact that I am seeing your kind review means that you and your family must have gone back to California and to Alberta. I enjoyed spending a day in Tokyo with a big family of different ages. Looking forward to seeing you with your even younger generation members of your family in the future.
Yoshi was an excellent guide! We had a very wonderful day with Yoshi as our guide. He was very knowledgeable and he made sure we saw all the attractions we had wanted to see. He knew the detailed history of each site that we visited. He was also very easy to have a conversation with. Thank you Yoshi for such an enjoyable day!
Even though we were in the dense fog/cloud when we visited Kegon Waterfalls/Lake Chuzenji, we were able to see the whole 100-meter waterfalls from the platform at the base of the falls. In addition, we were able to cover the major Nikko world heritage sites and came back to Tokyo in just eight hours which is my record for Nikko tour including both Kegon waterfall and Toshogu compounds. This is all thank to Darlene from San Francisco, knows how to live with and control foggy weather even in Japan.