Kyoto Customized Half-Day Tour — Guide Nori

What Is a Private One-Day Kyoto Tour Like in Summer? A Licensed Guide's Report

The guests this time were a group visiting Japan from North America during their trip. I communicated with one of the guests in advance about the itinerary and other details. We traveled to the first stop, Kiyomizu-dera Temple, by bus as originally planned, passing through popular streets such as Ninen-zaka and Sannen-zaka before arriving at Kiyomizu-dera. However, just as we were about to begin touring Kiyomizu-dera, some of the guests said they would skip the temple grounds and browse the souvenir shops along the approach instead, so they went their own way. I imagined they may not have been able to bear the intense heat and crowds, but in my nearly ten years of guiding experience, this was the first time I had encountered such a case of the group splitting up. As a result, the tour of Kiyomizu-dera continued with the remaining members of the group.

The effects of the extreme heat also showed in a change of transportation. According to the plan, the next leg to Sanjusangendo was to take about ten minutes by bus, but the guests were reluctant to walk to the bus stop, so they called a large taxi themselves and we traveled by taxi instead.

Another instance of some guests going their own way occurred at Sanjusangendo. Naturally, whenever entering the main hall of a temple, one must remove their shoes, but one of the guests did not seem convinced, asking why they had to take off their shoes, and said they would rather not tour it if it meant removing their shoes. As a result, one of the group waited outside the main hall to accompany them. I imagined this behavior may have come from being quite tired after a long journey.

In this flow, the final move to Fushimi Inari Taisha was also by taxi. At Fushimi Inari, there was no need to remove shoes, and drawn in by the colorful torii gates, it became the first part of the tour that the entire group joined together. However, due to the delays in the first half of the tour, by the time we finished visiting Fushimi Inari Taisha it was already 2:00 p.m., the scheduled end of the guiding. According to the original plan, I was to see the guests off to their hotel at the end, but the guests kindly told me, "Thank you for guiding us this far. You may finish here," so we ended the guided tour on the spot. In any case, guiding a tour in such extreme heat was quite demanding.

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Tour Report by Nori

Hi, everyone! I’m Norifumi Kamon, a government registered guide interpreter. Please call me “Nori”, or “Kamon-san”.
Let me introdece myself. I was born on April 17th in 1952 in Miyazaki prefecture in Kyushu island. I used to be an English teacher of Osaka Prefectural high school. When I retired from a teacher ten years ago, I decided to get a professional guide license. I wanted to play a role of the bridge between Japanese people and the people from all over the world as a second life of mine. After two years efforts, I finally got the guide license. Since then, I have guided several handreds of foreign people mainly in Kyoto and Nara for about five years except Corona Pandemic period. Almost all the tourists were deeply impressed by the beauty of nature, traditoin, culture, and art of Japan. I can surely help you enjoy and be satisfied with the sightseeing in Japan. And I’m looking forward to seeing you soon.