Kyoto Customized Private Tour in 1 Day — Guide Kazu

What Is a Private Kyoto Day Tour Like After Osaka and Nara? A Licensed Guide's Report

The guests were a group visiting from North America. Originally the group was expected to be larger, but it ended up being smaller on the day. I always let guests know in advance that I will be wearing a red cap as a marker when we meet first thing in the morning, but today, as soon as we met, the first thing they did was give me a local baseball cap as a present. Perhaps it means I should wear it every time from now on, ha ha. They traveled from Tokyo to Osaka and Nara, and today it was Kyoto. After that, they planned to stop over in Asia before returning home. In Tokyo they enjoyed the dazzle of the big city in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, and elsewhere; in Osaka they did a food tour; and in Nara they experienced the atmosphere of the ancient capital. And so, they said, in Kyoto they wanted to learn about Japanese history, and to experience things like gardens and other sources of Japanese culture. One of the guests took the lead and asked question after question, but I felt that more of the questions were about daily life in present-day Japanese society. I started to explain what Zen is at a Zen temple, but they did not seem very interested in religion and did not listen much. On the other hand, they seemed to enjoy topics such as the northeastern "demon gate" (kimon) derived from Onmyodo, the story of Jizo Bodhisattva, kaiseki cuisine, and obanzai home-style cooking. I was stumped by the question of when the shoji paper at a Zen temple is replaced. I looked it up afterward and gave them an answer. I was also a bit stumped, at every historic site, by the question of why we can know things from several hundred to a thousand years ago in such detail. Perhaps in a country with a relatively short history, there is not the same academic world of analyzing old documents, or excavation surveys and restoration. Overall, the sense was that they wanted to know about the daily life of modern Japanese people and the history that lies at its source. After visiting Sanjusangendo, we parted ways; they said they specifically wanted to return to their hotel by city bus, so we said goodbye at a nearby bus stop.

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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