July 2010
Guide: Ryuichiro Hayashi
Route: Tsukiji fish market – Ginza – Asakusa – Akihabara; Tokyo Metropolitan Government building – Harajuku – Shibuya – Odaiba

My name is Maricel Lustre. A few weeks ago, I wrote to Tokyo Free Guide requesting a free tour. TFG assigned a wonderful tour guide to us named “Hayashi Ryuichiro” also known as Ichiro-san for short.
My family and I would like to thank Tokyo Free Guide for giving us Ichiro-san. He is very professional, punctual, knowledgeable and was able to save us money by using wise transportation. We enjoyed all of the places we visited but we had lots of fun in Odaiba. We also loved dining at Ganko. We are very happy in having Ichiro-san as our tour guide. Our14 year old son loved him! Ichiro-san was very patient with him. Our son could not stop talking about him. We learned so much from Ichiro-san. It was our first time to tour Tokyo and our experience was very memorable. Thank you very much Ichiro-san for showing us Tokyo. We feel very fortunate in having met you because in doing so we have gained a friend. Read the rest of this entry »

January 2010
Guide: Katsue Shinomiya; Noriko Murakami
Route: (Day 1) Shinjuku – Ginza – Asakusa – Akihabara; (Day 2) Sinjuku – Harajuku – Gaiennmae – Kokyo – Odaiba; (Day 3) Tokyo Daibutsu – Ikebukuro – Ryogoku

We my family had a great time in japan. we (rafael, Clelia and Tato) have done a wonderful trip to Japan in January 25-2010
we are not descendants of Japanese but we had a curiosity to know a developed and organized country. were delighted with this country. but I confess that what made the difference was to have the support of the guides Katsue and Noriko. … They are wonderful people, and we particularly like being able to be with them.
We would like to congratulate the “free guide” service. especially Katsue and Noriko.

Clelia, Rafael & Tato

September 2009
Guide: Yukiyo Itahana
Route: (Sep.19) Shinjuku – Kagurazaka – Akihabara – Asakusa – Ginza; (Sep.20) Harajuku – Yoyogi Park – Asakusa; (Sep.25) Ginza – Shinbashi – Odaiba

I heard about the Tokyo Free Guide website very close to our travel date, but decided I would give it a try & write, even though it was past the suggested date that I should write by. Within a couple of days I received a reply by email directly from Yukio, a 68 year old retiree. His English was very good, & he was available for us to meet the morning after we arrived in Tokyo , which was great for me. I later wrote him to say that perhaps our group might be a bit bigger than I originally thought. I was traveling with a modern dance company, we were performing at the Aoyama Round Theatre. When they heard from me about Yukiyo they were all very excited & everyone wanted to join! Yukiyo’s response by email: “Welcome, welcome. The more the merrier.” I knew I was going to like him.

Yukiyo met us at our hotel lobby, after introductions & giving him a small gift I had brought with me (a beautiful photo book of Tel Aviv) we headed out. We did all the regular tourist stuff the first day- the observatory in the Municipal Government building in Shinjuku, Akihabara, Asakusa, Ginza . It was so great being with Yukiyo, having him teach us how to use the metro, how to order food in restaurants, & just the great conversations we had with him. At the end of the first day, even though we had only agreed to that one day, he offered to meet us in the morning & continue our exploration of Tokyo . Read the rest of this entry »

September 2009
Guide: Koji Yamada
Route: September 20th: Hamarikyu Garden- Asakusa – Ameyoko street in Ueno – Akihabara (electric town) – Yakitori in Yurakucho; September 21st: Odaiba – Tsukudajima – Nezu – Yanaka

Dear Tokyo Free Guide

We want to thank Koji Yamada for being our guide in Tokyo on September 19th and 20th 2009. He was a wonderful guide and showed us popular areas like Asakusa as well the back alleys of Nezu and Yanaka. He explained about these places in clear English and really enhanced our appreciation and understanding of Tokyo’s history and culture. He also taught us a few useful phrases in Japanese. Not only did he show us and tell us about the real Tokyo but also taught us how to use the subway so that we could explore on our own. Whoever said “You will be lost in Tokyo,” didn’t have Koji for a guide. In addition, he showed us inexpensive and authentic places that we would never have found by ourselves. We highly recommend Koji as a guide.

All the best,

Don Gabor and Eileen Cowell

July 2009
Guide: Keiko Nagamatsu; Naomi; Mitsuyo Fujiwara
Route: Z?j?-ji – Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building – Meiji Shrine – Odaiba – Shiodome; Nikko (T?sh?-g? – Futarasan Shrine – Rinn?-ji); Kamakura

Dear TOKYO FREE GUIDE,

You were so kind to arrange for three guides for our trip to Japan on relatively short notice. They were Keiko-san on July 13th for Tokyo, Naomi-san on July 15th for Nikko, and Mitsuyo-san on July 16th for Kamakura. We want to thank you very much for these arrangements. They were the best guides we ever had anywhere. All of them were extremely kind, knowledgeable, professionally meticulous in the preparation of our trips, very personal, fluent in English and German respectively, had sense of humour – and just were plain charming. My wife Christina and I were enchanted and extremely lucky of having these wonderful three ladies as guides. We saw and learnt so much more on these three trips than we could ever have managed by doing it ourselves. The sightseeing tours were unforgettable experiences both into the venerable ancient Japanese culture with its unique temples, shrines and gardens and the breathtaking modern Japan with her mind boggling architecture.

Thanks to you personally for providing our wonderful guides and for serving tourists from all over the world with your fine agency. We will recommend Tokyo Free Guide to all of our friends and acquaintences planning to see Tokyo. Please feel free to quote us as you see fit.

Kind regards,

Peter and Christina Jacobi
Aachen, Germany

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.

May, 2008
Guide: Masako Shimada
Route: Odaiba – Omotesando – Harajuku – Shibuya

We wanted to thank you for arranging the services of Masako as our guide in Tokyo on May 21st. It was the most wonderful experience for us, as she was so gracious, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and warm. She helped us love Tokyo. She taught us about Japanese life and culture. She listened to all our requests, and gave us even more. As a final gesture of the day, she made sure we found a great restaurant and helped us order, even though she was already late for her own family, having spent more than the expected time with us. It was truly an amazing experience to meet her.

Paul Goldhamer and Michelle Farine

December, 2007
Guide: Noriyuki Iwai and Souei Takahashi
Route: Inokashira park – Ghibli Museum – Shinjuku – Meiji Shrine – Harajuku – Jingu-gaien – Odaiba

Dear Tokyo Free Guide,

My sister and I would like thank your organization and your guides for providing great service to foreign tourists like us. It was very nice of our two guides, Noriyuki Iwai-san and Souei Takahashi-san to take time out of their busy schedule to guide us around Tokyo. They were both courteous and friendly. Because of them, we were able to discover beautiful places such as Inokashira-kouen park and Jingugaien that we didn’t know about before. This was our first trip to Japan and our wonderful guides helped us make it more memorable.

We will always remember this trip and we hope to meet our wonderful guides again in Japan.

Domo Arigato Gozaimashta!

June, 2007
Guide: H. K. and Chinami Nishizawa
Route: Imperial Palace – Ginza – Harajuku – Meiji Shrine – Shinjuku – Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office; Hama-Rikyu Garden – Odaiba

Thank you for your great service. We had the services of two of your excellent guides, H. K. on Sunday 24th of June and Chinami Nishizawa on Tuesday 26th of June. Both of these guides were excellent in all aspects and we had wonderful days full of memories with both. We will highly recommend your services to all our friends and colleagues who are visiting Tokyo. Please accept our sincere gratitude to your organisation and the two guides in particular for helping make our trip to Japan a very memorable one indeed.

Kind Regards,

Scott and Rebecca
Gold Coast, Australia

May, 2007
Guide: Sanae Kawamoto, Naomi Ishiwatari, Takae Azuma, and Chiemi Nimura
Route: Narita Airport – Hotel; Ueno – Harajuku – Omotesando; Asakusa – Hinode-sanbashi by waterbus – Odaiba by monorail; Shinjku – Edo Tokyo Museum; Hotel – JR Tokyo station

TFG ( Tokyo Free Guide)
For a long time we wanted to visit Japan, but it seemed to complicated, spatially because my wife is using a wheel chair. In our case the TFG (Tokyo Free Guide) made our impossible trip to Japan, possible. As we landed at the airport, Sanae Kawamoto welcomed us with her bright smile and the visit became friendly, very interesting and easy. She introduced us to the first Japanese meal, papered the plan, places to visit and explained how to use subway. Next days other wonderful guides joint us: Naomi Ishiwatari, Takae Azuma, Chiemi Nimura and our dream was fulfilled.
TFG is an extraordinary organization it is not only helping tourists experience Japanese culture and local customs, it is also bringing together directly, the western tourist with people of Japan.
We appreciate very much the opportunity that we had to know your guides and through them more people that we met. We had the chance to see so many interesting and beautiful places in Tokyo.

Thank you so much for this.

Carmela & Naftali.
Haifa, Israel