Factory tours such as car assembly, beer/Sake brewery, civil engineering facilities or manufacturing facilities available on site. With my engineering background, I can give you additional information to what the factory guide gives in Japanese. Most of the facilities ask you to refrain from taking photos.
Your hotel lobby in Tokyo
Depends on where you go
Your choice of either your hotel or your preferred spot in Tokyo.
Choose one or two of below factory tour. I will pick you up in your hotel and take you to the factory. I will give you a translation of the factory guide in Japanese with my engineering background and take you back to the hotel.
1. Sake brewery: Availability is always tight, admission fee may be required, Sake tasting involved.
2. The Bank of Japan
3. Tokyo stock exchange
4. Suntory beer factory
5. Nissan car assembly factory. Availability is always tight.
6. Honda car factory: reservations must be made 3 months ahead.
7. G-Cans in Saitama (giant underground rain water reservoir to prevent flood in Tokyo)
8. Any other facility tours available on internet.
The whole tour is subject to factory tour availability. You might want to make a priority list so that I can try from the top to find available spots.
Except Sake brewery, they are open on weekdays only and closed on weekends or national holidays. They may take their own days off for maintenance, too.
Car factories require three months lead time.
My guide fee, my transportation fares and lunch
My admission fee if required.
Your transportation fares, admission fees and meals/sounevirs.
Except Sake brewery, they are not open on weekdays, statutory holidays nor on their maintenance days.
There may be age restrictions. Please inquire with the ages of the tourists.
All the factory tour are not wheelchair friendly due to safety reasons.
The factory tours are very popular in Japan. The availability goes away very quickly after the release day. What I can say is the earlier the better.
My family and I were enjoying our time in Japan, but struggled to really take in the culture and history of such a wonderful country and city (Tokyo). We chose to do an English tour to help us better immerse ourselves. Akira was responsive and worked with me to cover the things I thought myself and my family would enjoy most. Akira communicated well and I never had a problem speaking the entire time in English. We met Akira on time at a metro station five minutes from our hotel, which was very convenient. Akira walked us through the agenda again and we were off, navigating the metro like pros. We chose first to go to a temple, then the Imperial Palace gardens, then to Hirijuku for a special treat and all the shopping we wanted. Throughout the trip Akira talked about the Japanese history, the history of Tokyo and the Imperial Palace. We spent a lot of time talking about culturing and the religions and practices of the Japanese. Akira was fantastic and showed us everything we asked, and more with some surprises. If we had more time, the motorcycle tour sounded like a blast!
Thank you very much for your favorable comments. I’ll make my maximum efforts to improve my tours even further.
As the weather was on and off Arti kept in constant communication on go/no go. Everything was a breeze from getting to the Kofu bike shop from Tokyo, renting the bike and the tour itself. Arti is extremely knowledgeable and very kind to stop and explain the history and culture of what we are viewing. 5 star day all around. Next time we will definitely go again with Arti for tours if we are around Japan. Pleasure to have had Arti lead our family on the motorcycle tour.
Thank you very much for your favorable comments. The weather wasn’t perfect but we could enjoy Mt. Fuji area. I will keep improving my tours.
Akira (aka Arti) is a great guide. Very knowledgable of the area, kept on schedule, and provided us all of the points in the itinerary. He had fun stories and was great with conversation. He even provided some pointers for shopping for specific souvenir items. Although it is an extra few hundred dollars, the private taxi is worth his recommendation for the Mt. Fuji area - we wouldn't have been able to see everything without it.
Thank you very much for your favorable comments. I will make my efforts to make my tours even better for the future.
What an amazing day and what and amazing Tour Guide. We met Akira on the train and he had arranged a private driver and car as per our request. Akira made the day so run smoothly and made the day very interesting. He was happy to answer all our questions and more than happy to make changes during the day as the weather was spectacular. We were a group of 4 adults who enjoy seeing the amazing mountains. Our tour meant that we did not see many other tours despite it being peak season which just made the day all the more special.
Thank you very much for your favorable comments. I will make my future tours even better.