Kyoto Customized Private Tour in 1 Day — Guide Kazu

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

The guests were a group visiting from North America. It was their first time in Japan. They spent about four days in Tokyo and one day in Kyoto, and were planning one day in Osaka the next day before returning to Tokyo and heading home. They were a lively and delightful group. From early in the morning at the Hotel, they listened to my explanations with great interest and enjoyment. One of the guests had studied a little Japanese and had some knowledge of Japanese history, which made it easy to talk with them. They even knew the term "Meiji Restoration" and were explaining it to the rest of the group, though a little off the mark, so I would offer a corrected explanation. They also knew a bit about feng shui and onmyodo (yin-yang cosmology), but not quite enough, so I would add to what they said, and in this way we happily went over our schedule from the morning. One of the guests taught me that people who study Japanese find the pronunciation of "dou itashimashite" difficult, so they remember it as "Don't touch my mustache." Many people may already know this, but I did not, and I burst out laughing when I heard it while walking through the thousand torii gates of Fushimi Inari. I thought it was quite clever. Come to think of it, there seem to be similar tricks going from Japanese to English as well. In the end, we spent the whole day like this and unfortunately did not make it to the Philosopher's Path as planned, but the guests were quite talkative themselves, so they understood the atmosphere and we parted happily. Today too, we said goodbye with my favorite word, "ookini." Don't touch my mustache!

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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