After meeting, by subway to Hakusan station - Koishikawa Botanical Garden - Hatoyama Kaikan - Chinzan-so - Tokyo Cathedral Church - Waseda University(Japanese-style garden and Theater Museum) - at your hotel(break up) or optional one: at a casual Japanese-style bar restaurant called Izakaya ( break up after a two hour supper)
At your hotel in the middle of Tokyo
Koishikawa Botanical Garden: strolling in the garden on the undulated ground
Hatoyama Kaikan: Hatoyama family has produced famous politicians including two prime ministers
Chinzanso: the beautiful Japanese garden and wonderful restaurants
Waseda University: the unique Theater Museum, Japanese-style garden and the whole atmosphere of the campus
At your hotel or Izakaya
You feel greenery in Tokyo, see modern architectures and know more about Japanese history and culture. The following is a summary of destinations in the tour. Besides each place, you can feel atmosphere of Tokyo and various aspects such as daily life of citizens, unique appearance on the way to one by one.
Koishikawa Botanical Garden is a research field of the University of Tokyo which is 160000 square meters and has a long history. Hatoyama Kaikan is the former Hatoyama family's residence characterized by its European-style design and a rose garden. Chinzan-so is now a famous hotel with a large Japanese-style garden but originally a scenic place known for its camellias. Tokyo Cathedral Church is Catholic Church Archdiocese of Tokyo, which was designed by a famous architect and completed in 1964. In the campus of Waseda University(founded in 1882), there are two destinations: Japanese-style garden and Theater Museum. Theater Museum provides you with exhibitions related to traditional Japanese theatrical arts such as kabuki, Noh and so on. But overall. the whole campus interests you on the way to each place. After the tour, if you like, I would like to take you to my favorite Izakaya, a casual Japanese-style bar restaurant as a optional one.
guide fee, hotel pick-up, guide transportation fee
- Your transportation fee(about 500 yen per person)
- Lunch(about 2000 to 3000 yen per person)
- Entrance fee(Koishikawa Botanical Garden: 400 yen per person, Hatoyama kaikan: 600 yen per person)
- Optional supper at Izakaya( about 5000 yen per person) & additional guide fee 1000 yen
We have a walk through the tour in a relaxing manner. It's approximately 6 km distance and takes two hours. It's good to wear light clothes and shoes. Koishikawa Botanical Garden is closed on Mondays. Hatoyama Kaikan is closed on Mondays and during from January to February, and August. Theater Museum have no regular closure but have a plan of special long closure(7 August 2017 - 22 March 2018) due to refurbishment.
He has characteristics that tourist guides “must have”
Dear Div I am very pleased to hear you praise my personality, and you enjoyed walking on the shopping streets and through the park. There are many things to see and experience in Japan. I hope you will come to Japan again and we will see each other again. Thank you so much. Hiro
Hiroyuki is an amicable, pleasant guide whose English is good but not fluent. We had some questions that he clearly did not understand. Our trip to Nikko was not a success because Hiro was not prepared with a “Plan B’” in mind for the difficulties that we experienced. The difficulties were not his fault: a national holiday that created horrific problems and delays on public transportation and fog that prevented us from seeing 2 out of 3 sites in Nikko. We are 4 very active senior citizens but standing on trains and especially crammed busses for hours was not pleasurable. We could not even see the landscape. Adding the fact that it was foggy was a recipe for disaster. We finally made it to the ropeway and Hiro seemed surprised that we didn’t want to go up. There would be nothing to see in total fog! The situation was similar with the waterfall area. We did have a nice lunch but by the time we waited yet again for a packed bus, we decided to skip the shrine as it was already 3:30pm. Basically we traveled to Nikko and saw nothing but the train and bus stations! Much of this was not Hiro’s fault BUT much could have been mitigated by him doing the following: 1. Offer an option for private transportation in Nikko via taxi or van for a fee. 2. Check the weather conditions and have a plan for alternative activities. In our case he should have reversed his schedule so that we could have at least seen the shrine in town! He didn’t know about the fog…we don’t know the area but knew there were foggy conditions because we checked the weather prior to departure! We are experienced travelers and don’t stop because of weather! However, fog that obliterated 2 out of 3 sites plus transportation chaos meant an unfavorable experience.
Dear Debra Thank you very much for joining the tour to Nikko. I am very sorry that your precious day was spoiled by bad weather, traffic jams and my bad conduct. Hiroyuki
Hiroyuki was very friendly but sometimes a little hard to understand and we felt that if his grasp of english had been better he would have had a lot of knoledge to impart. The tour was wonderful and we took a lot of photos to remind us of the beauty of this area.
Dear Frans Thank you for joining the tour in the countryside to see waterfalls. I am very surprised to hear that you are very knowledgeable about Japan. I enjoyed accompanying you as a guide. Hiroyuki
Hiroyuki was very flexible and accommodating as we only had a few hours to spend in Tokio. Very nice experience! Wish we had more time to learn more about Japan and its culture.
Dear Carolina Thank you for your good appraisal on my job. I am very pleased that you spent the precious time on experiencing Japanese culture and talking about many things to each other. I am waiting for you to come to Japan again and at that time I would like to accompany you as a guide. Japan is a wonderful country to travel in and it have many things to see. Hiroyuki