Kyoto Customized Private Tour by Car — Guide Kazu

Title: What's a Private Kyoto Tour Like for Return Visitors to Japan? A Licensed Guide's Report

The guests were a group from Asia who had visited Japan many times before for work. Both spoke very beautiful American English and were friendly, cheerful, and wonderful at enjoying themselves. Since they had expressed an interest in Japanese history, we began right from the hotel in the morning with the question of what the relationship between the Emperor and the Shogun was. This is a topic I personally enjoy, so I got quite enthusiastic about it. They travel all over the world and have visited 64 countries so far, with only the southern half of Africa and Antarctica remaining on their list. They are quite the food lovers, yet somehow they did not know about Japanese okonomiyaki, which I found unacceptable, so we had okonomiyaki for lunch. As expected, they were very pleased with it. They were surprised when I told them that people in the Kansai region eat okonomiyaki as a side dish with plain white rice. As I always do, I taught them the phrase "ookini," and they used it repeatedly at the okonomiyaki restaurant and became friendly with the staff. Since they are going on a day trip to Hiroshima tomorrow, I said the Hiroshima guide would surely suggest eating Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki and that they should compare the two, and they said, "Got it!" They were a lively group to be with. They had originally said they wanted to visit the bamboo grove in Arashiyama, so I took them to a small but quiet bamboo grove located behind the mountain of Fushimi Inari, which they enjoyed. Afterward they planned to go shopping for shoes at Onitsuka Tiger. They love Uniqlo and Muji. Today we were pressed for time and did not have much to spare, but the driver was very helpful all day, using great judgment in various places and providing useful information. Thank you very much. Please pass along my regards.

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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