Tokyo Customized Private Tour in 1 Day — Guide Minoruasai

What Is a Private One-Day Tour of Tokyo Like in Heavy Rain? A Licensed Guide's Report

The guests were visiting Japan from North America. One of them had work in Osaka, and on that occasion the group came to Japan for a short time, staying three days in Kyoto after Osaka. On the morning of the tour, they arrived at Tokyo Station, and the tour began at 11:00 a.m. At the Nakamise shopping street in Asakusa, they happily bought hand cream at a cosmetics shop as a gift. Both guests said they love sushi, and at the Tsukiji Outer Market, which they had requested, they said, "After eating a big breakfast, we'd like to eat just a little sushi lightly to enjoy the atmosphere," so I took them to a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. They were delighted, saying, "It's surprisingly delicious, and so cheap. We're amazed."

After that, at a pottery shop, one of the guests found some ceramics they liked, which they were also very pleased with. But following this, we encountered an incredible amount of rain. We moved to the Tsukiji subway station getting quite wet, got off at Otemachi, and entered the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace, but the rain grew even stronger. We walked as far as the rest area, but the atmosphere was hardly one in which we could reach the Japanese garden. All three of us, including me, ended up with soaked shoes. In places the road was flooded nearly 10 centimeters deep, and it was impossible to avoid walking through it. We waited for an hour, but checking the rain cloud radar on my smartphone showed that heavy rain would continue for a while, so I consulted with them. They said, "We'd rather not get any wetter. It seems there's a Pokémon Center near Tokyo Station, and we'd like to buy a souvenir for our child there. Is it a long walk?" I replied, "Then let's go to the Tokyo Station Pokémon Center. Right after leaving the garden entrance, we can get there without getting wet through the underground passage," so we walked a little over 10 minutes to the Pokémon Center through the underground passage. Having been able to buy a souvenir at the Pokémon Center, once the payment was done, they said, "Let's end here for today. We'll walk back to the hotel ourselves." But the hotel was only about a 10-minute walk from the Pokémon Center, so I accompanied them there and ended the tour.

We could not visit Meiji Shrine as requested because of the intense rain, but they kindly said, "This is the work of nature and there's nothing we can do about it." Even so, it was my first time experiencing rain from a linear precipitation zone, and it was a tour that taught me the atmosphere was hardly one in which one could walk outside at all.

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Tour Report by MINORUASAI

I acquired national guide license in 2014, and I have been doing guide work full fledged since 2016. In my career before starting guide work, I was a business man and made more than 1,000 business trips both abroad and in Japan, and that experience is my foundation as a guide because I came to know so many places both abroad and in Japan. I have been taking care of both group and individual tourists, and the number of foreign guests I have taken care is close to 2,500 so far. I am based in Tokyo, but I can cover guide work in many prefectures throughout Japan. When I take care of foreign guests, my major concern is to listen attentively to them, find out what they want to know and do in Japan, and give them appropriate guiding in accordance with what I heard from my guests. I would like to provide tailor made tour as much as possible for every precious guest who kindly chose Japan as the tour destination.