April 2009
Guide: Kyoko Minami
Route: Imperial Palace ? Nezu & Yanaka ? Ueno park

Dear Tokyo Free Guide,

We were very lucky to have the services of one of your guides, Kyoko Minami, on April 27 for a full day tour of Tokyo. She took us to the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace, Yanaka and Ueno Park. She is absolutely delightful. Aside from seeing the sights we learned something about Japanese culture from her.

Your program is terrific. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to enjoy Tokyo with one of your guides.

Best Regards,

Renae & Steve Buckser
San Francisco, California

April, 2009
Guide: Masako Shimada
Route: Imperial Palace – Ginza – Ueno

Dear Tokyo Free Guide,

On April 22, 2009 we were fortunate enough that through this service we arranged for Mrs. Masako Shimada to guide us. After about one minute with Mrs. Shimada we felt completely at ease; we were with a friend. She had much printed information for us to use and took us where we had asked: the Toyko National Museum. In addition she took us to lunch at a Ginza dept. store, to the Imperial Gardens and to Ueno park and its surroundings. She was friendly, warm, flexible, sensitive and her English was outstanding, with many colloquialisms and an ample vocabulary. Our time with her was the highlight of our visit to Tokyo. We enclose photos.

Thanks again,
Maria Acosta Cruz; Dan and Amanda Cesarano

April 2009
Guide: Yoko Gomi
Route: Asakusa – Shibuya – Kameido

Hello!!

Yoko is the best guide in the world and we had a great day with her. Now we have got another reason to come back to Japan.

Un fuerte abrazo,
Palma y Miguel (Spain)

April, 2009
Guide: Naomi Suita
Route: Asakusa – Sumida river – Shibamata

Dear Tokyo Free Guide,

Thanks to your excellent guide, Mrs. Naomi Suita, we have enjoyed a most wonderful day in Tokyo. She came to our hotel and we first went to Asakusa (Kaminarimon Gate – Nakamise Street – Sensoji Temple and Sensoji Shrine). Then we had a nice lunch at Kamameshi restaurant ‘Haru’ nearby.

After lunch we had a most enjoyable cruise on the Sumida River. The weather was excellent and it was a very pleasant boat trip. The next visit was to Shibamata and we did some shopping at Sonoda on the approach to Taishakuten temple, which we visited and where we admired the superb woodcarvings. On the way back we found large three-monkey statues at the entrance to the approach to Taishakuten temple.

This last remark needs an explanation. Since many years we collect the three monkeys that keep their ears, eyes and mouth closed, see our website: http://three-monkeys.info . In our initial email correspondence with Mrs. Suita we had asked whether it would be possible to find and buy some 3-monkey figurines in Tokyo. We are very pleased to say that, thanks to her, we have been very successful with that, both in Asakusa and in Shibamata.

It had become quite late that day and we asked Mrs. Suita to join us for dinner nearby our hotel in Ginza. After that she left us and she still had a two hours train ride back to her home. It was only later that we became fully aware how much preparation work and planning Mrs. Suita must have done to make sure that we would visit and see the right places. We thank her very much again and we are very grateful for all what she has done to make our day with her unforgettable.

Because of her excellent knowledge of English, there was a perfect understanding all the time. She is easy going, very helpful, very friendly and a perfect guide.

We are still full with nice thoughts and fantastic memories of this wonderful visit to Tokyo and we thank TOKYO FREE GUIDE and Mrs. Suita very much for making this possible.

Kindest regards from Switzerland,
Anneke & Emil Schuttenhelm

April 2009
Guide: Hiromi Ichikawa
Route: (Day 1) Hamarikyu Park – Sensoji Temple Asakusa – Shinjuku; (Day 2) Meiji Shrine – Omotesando – Ginza – Imperial Palace; (Day 3) Nikko

As a family that had the plesure to be guided by one of your members, I want to thank your organization for all that had been done for us. It was wunderful to know that some body will help us to get around in Tokyo the first days. We had the plesure to be guided by Hiromi Ichikawa and there are no words to thank her for what she did for us Her kindness, helpfulness, her resdiness and above all her smile, did the days in Tokyo so remarcablefor us.

Thank you again
Edi Bushansky

April, 2009
Guide: Mitsuharu Tada
Route: Tsukiji – Ueno & TFG HANAMI PARTY 2009 @ Shinjuku Gyoen park

Dear Tokyo Free Guide,

Thank you Mr. Tada for guiding me around Tsukiji and Ueno. I enjoyed that my guide took the time to get to know what things I liked so that he could plan a day I would enjoy. I learned a lot and had a fun day.

I especially had a great time at the Hanami Party 2009. The guides were all so happy to meet all of the guests and share their culture with us. They were all very friendly and I had a great experience. The atmosphere was very comfortable, the company was great, and the cherry blossoms were beautiful!

Thank you again for your service!
Pam

April, 2009
Guide: Hiroko Watanabe and Kozue Matsuura
Route: Nihonbashi – Imperial Palace – Chidorigafuchi – Yasukuni Shrine; Ueno – Yanaka – Asakusa

I would like to thank you Tokyo free guide organization and specially my two wonderdul guides Matsuura and Hiroko.

I visited ueno,Yanaka, nezu, Asakusa, imperial garden, Yasukuni shrine … I saw a beautiful Ikebana exhibition.

I learned so much with them, it was so interesting, I discovered nice places I would never have found alone.

I wanted so much to see the cherry blossom trees, they have taken me to famous places where I could admired them.

I tryed many delicious pastries, and japanese food.

I won’t forget their kindness !

I feel so well and in confidence … after I was ready to travel alone in all Japan.

Thank you so much for this strong experience.
Estelle (France)

March, 2009
Guide: Katsue Shinomiya

Tokyo Free Guides,

for the second year in row I want to thank and congratulate you for your service. Last year 2 pairs of wonderfully energetic and resourceful ladies were excellent guides. One of them, Katsue, and I maintained email contact. I mentioned to her my hobby of drawing Japanese dolls. She suggested the third day of the third month hinamatsuri/doll festival/girls’ day would be a good time to return. Wow, I thought, what a great idea. Katsue planned out a very full calendar. On the first day we participated in the Edo Nagashi-bina. Nearby a hall had a beautiful flower arrangement exhibit, a tea ceremony and three very talented students playing koto, shakuhachi and singing. One song was suggestive of the seashore, they said. Their playing reminded me of Genji when he was in lonely exile by the ocean.

Then, to a restaurant for Okonomiyaki, Japanese Pizza, a meal I knew about from a television program, but I had never tasted. Very good. Then doll shops. Two stores had 6 floors of beautiful dolls. Several smaller shops were on the same block. Numerous and very artistic dolls. Then a tasty dinner at a restaurant filled with sumo memento and luckily that night, a former sumo person with a show.

The next day we took the train to tour Iwatsuki (Saitama Prefecture) to visit its famous doll museum and see many private collections on display. A highlight was visiting where dolls are made and having the good fortune to purchase two of them at bargain price. And then a visit to an antique doll shop in Tokyo recommended by dealer in the USA, but which Katsue had found for me when I mentioned it to her. And Italian food at an elegant restaurant.

On the last day we enjoyed a long stroll in the serene garden at the Imperial Palace, take out pastry at Tokyo Station.

And of course I took over 300 hundred pictures during my stay in Tokyo. Katsue herself is also an excellent and sharing photographer. Thus many of the pictures I show everyone are actually her photos. I was able with a great deal of Katsue’s help to navigate the Tokyo train and subway system. Her abilities in English and Japanese were exceptional. My personal Japanese vocabulary is a very few poorly pronounced words.

I am truly grateful to Katsue, the kindness of the Japanese people, and to Tokyo Free Guides for making my short trip so very memorable.

Raul Ortega

January 2009
Guide: Kyoko and Yu Arafuka
Route: Aoyama – Roppongi – Omotesando; Akasaka – Asakusa – Odaiba – Sihnjuku

Dear Tokyo Free guides

We would like to express our appreciation to Kyoko-san and Yu-san for sharing their time with us in Tokyo february 2009. It was our first visit to Japan and Tokyo is an amazing city and although we ran all day we did not get to see it all so we will be returning again. We cannot express how wonderful your service and your people are and what fantastic ambassadors for Japan you all are. You all deserve medals and your generosity is spreading around the world very quickly. I have already recommended you to many people from Australia and overseas. I hope you do not get to busy.

Kyoko-san introduced us to the subway system and taught us how to use the ticket machines and navigate ourselves around. We even got caught in rush hour which was quite an experience and thank fully having Kyoko with us also made it fun. She was kind enough to show us around Roppongi which is so beautiful
and I will be visiting again. She then found us a wonderful little organic restaurant called “Red Crayon” which I highly recommend. The food was so fresh that we went back again before we left. Kyoko-san also recommended shops for us and we did visit ALOOK Kyoko and found what we wanted. Thank you.

Yu-san spent the entire day and evening with us which was so very generous of his time. He tried to squeeze as much in as possible from Shibuya to Odaiba and Asakusa which we could never have seen in one day by ourselves. He took us to the temples and explained the cleansing ritual and spoke about the
Japanese people and lifestyes of the younger generations. He was alot of fun and both our guides spoke english very very well.

We spent our first two days with our guides and then we were able to navigate Tokyo with ease. We found the Japanese people to be very helpful and whenever we stopped in the subway to check our map someone would always come up to us and offer their help. We loved Tokyo but would never have been able to experience it as well as we did without Tokyo Free Guides help.

Thank you so much for a wonderful time. Please visit us if you are ever in Western Australia.

Miriam, Emma, Sally and Veronica. Perth West Australia.

January, 2008
Guide: Eriko Yoneyama
Route: Asakusa – Hamarikyu – Shiodome – Kabukiza

Free guide, I would just like to pass on our thanks for the efforts Eriko put in to show us Tokyo. She met us at the agreed time of 9 am and it was only much later in the day that we discovered she had travelled over 1.5 hours to be our guide for the day. We were very grateful that someone would devote their time to show us around.

The days activities Eriko had organised were excellent and something we could not have achieved with only a printed guide book. Eriko was the ultimate hostess, easy going and friendly and a great ambassador for Tokyo and Japan.

We would highly recommend Tokyo and the TokyoFreeGuide service to anyone wanting to experience Tokyo.

–
Regards Richard Unwin and Jennifer
Brisbane Australia