Kyoto Customized Private Tour in 1 Day — Guide Kazu

Title: What's a Private Day Trip from Tokyo to Kyoto Like by Bullet Train? A Licensed Guide's Report

The guests were a group from North America who were staying in Tokyo and came to Kyoto early in the morning by bullet train, planning to return to Tokyo in the evening. It was their first time in Japan, and although one of the group had visited once before, the group requested that I explain everything as if it were everyone's first visit. Their wishes were to learn about Japanese history and to see a dry landscape garden (karesansui), and to add the bamboo grove of Arashiyama as well.

The first thing they asked when we met was that, while they were interested in Japanese history, what mattered most to them was why each event happened — the background, this "Why?" was important. Why was the capital moved to Kyoto? Why did the capital need to move to Tokyo? Why did the 15th Tokugawa shogun have to return power to the emperor? Why is the shogun called the shogun? Why are the torii gates at Fushimi Inari gathered together to form a tunnel? What exactly is Arashiyama? That was the kind of thing they wanted to know. For me it was exactly what I had been waiting for, and I happily talked about everything one after another.

Since they were interested in dry landscape gardens, I also talked about Zen Buddhism, seated meditation, and what karesansui is, but surprisingly there were no deep questions on this topic. Perhaps its spiritual nature was difficult to grasp. On the other hand, they listened with great interest to topics like Onmyodo, perhaps because it overlapped in their minds with feng shui. The North American pronunciation of "Yin Yang" was difficult for me, so I took the opportunity to ask them to repeat it many times, and when I practiced the pronunciation on the train asking "Is it something like this?" it got a big laugh for reasons I don't quite understand.

For lunch we went into an udon shop. Starting from how the udon broth is completely different between the Kanto and Kansai regions, we somehow ended up talking about the difference in temperament between people from Kansai and Kanto. Today it started raining in the afternoon, and at the final destination, Fushimi Inari Taisha, it rained quite hard and got cold, so sightseeing became difficult. Unfortunately we had to wrap up early, and as time was running short, we returned to Kyoto Station and said goodbye. I hope it became a good memory for them.

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Tour Report by Kazu

Hello, this is Kazu Akiyama, your tour guide. Nice to meet you and welcome to Japan. Thank you for joining me on the tour. Now I am a retired salaried worker, living in Osaka. I have been very much interested in not only learning Japanese history, culture, religion myself, but also talking about them (sometimes going off topics) in English with tourists from all over the world as well. I am so excited being with you as your guide on coming day! I am very much looking forward to you enjoying with me visiting the must-see places and some of the hidden gems. See you soon. Thank you – Kazu Akiyama