New Year holiday’s tour schedule

The last tour in 2009       December 27 (Sunday)

The first tour in 2010      January 9  (Saturday)

No tour is scheduled on January 12 (Tuesday) and 14 (Thursday)

Thank you for your understanding!

Weekday tours now available !

Thanks to our many guests who have commented and given a wonderful reviews on various  travel sites, we have recently seen a big jump in the number of guests than ever before. At the same time we have been receiving  more requests for weekday tours forquite some time.

And now ladies and gentlmen, we are happy to announce the start of our weekday tours from October! We will run the tours twice a week, Route A (Tokyo Bay Ride) on Tuesdays and Route B (Sumo Wrestler’s Ride) on Thursdays.  Those of you who are only staying in Tokyo during the week, these tours are for you! We hope to see you then!

Now On Sale – T Shirts –

We are sometime asked by our guests if we don’t have any original items for sale. Finally, we have one item  -our very own  TGCT T-Shirt.

A fast-dry sport shirt from Jack Wolfskin , with our logo on the back and our route map on the right hand shoulder.

We have three sizes, M, L and XL, at 3,500yen.

Rallarvegen – The most beautiful bike path in the world -

Hello, again.  After I left the Netherlands, I visited Norway. It’s another lovely place to cycle. I had heard about Rallarvegen – the former construction road for Bergen Railway from our tour guest, so cycling here  is what I had been looking forward the most this time.

Rallarvegen was absolutely superb! It’ was like a fairyland. This is a must do ride!! 

Bike tour in Amsterdam

Hi, I’m Carlos. I recently took my summer vacation and the first stop was in the Netherlands to see my old friends.

As you know, Netherland is a great bicycle country, so how could I not  join a  bike tour?!  Of course I will! I participated in  Mike’s Bike Tours Amsterdam, as they organize English guided bike tour of the city. No need to book in advance, just drop by their bike storage place before the departure time, very easy. Maybe we should look into such operation in the future for our tours…  5-speed-citybikes were arranged for the tour. “We’ll need the gear to cycle over the  <Dutch Alps> “ the guide said

The day I joined the tour was a special day for the people in Amsterdam. It was the  “Gay Pride” Festival.

All of Amsterdam was completely packed! According to our tour guide, Sean, more than a half million people visit to see and participate in this special event. Tourists including myself enjoyed watching the decorated boats in the canal full of people dancing, singing and drinking their heats out!

The bike tour was wonderful, and so was the ”Gay Pride Festival”. There are definitely so many ways to enjoy this bike country.

Gundam An 18m-High Transformer

I’m not, but many male population my age are or were fans of Gundam, a transformer which first went on air as a TV animation in April 1979. The year 2009 is the 30th anniversary and the reason for this  big project  – ” Green Tokyo Gundam Project“.  This is now being held in Tokyo. (July 11- Aug 31). A ”real size” Gundam was created and stands tall in Odaiba.  How “real” is it? According to the comic artist, Gandam is 18 m tall, so the one in Odaiba is definitely big and real enough to attract many people, especially th 30-40 yr old one-time “BOYS”, now all grown up but still young  at heart!

We’ll be passing by this huge transformer during our bike tour  every Saturday.

Bicycle Design Welcome Signboard

Our new “Welcome signboard” arrived at our office today. A beautiful stained-glass panel using my favorite colour — GREEN.

Nozomi is the artist who created this artwork and  she usually makes interior accessories like  candle holders, mirrors or vase etc.  She herself has recently found the joy of cycling, and so she accepted our special request.

It definitely brightened up the office, we are very happy with it. Thanks, Nozomi!

Summer Evening Ride

 As I worte in my last entry, we are celebrating Tanabata (Star Festival) today.  At the same time  today is ‘Cool Earth Day’ in Japan, an initiative by the government to switch off unnecessary lights and to think about environmental issues such as global warming.   Some of the buildings, towers and signboards will be turning off the lights to save energy. This is a campaign which started last year when the Toyako G8 Summit was held in Hokkaido Japan.

This is a picture of the Tokyo Tower and Zojoji Temple before the tower light was turned off.

This summer, we are planning  a ‘Summer Special Ride’ besides our regular weekend tours.  With the Summer Morning Ride we will ride through Tsukiji and central Tokyo very early in the morning and in the Summer Evening Ride, we will be riding the water front area and along the canals. For more information, please take a look at our website ! 

Top page icon design – Tanabata Festival

Maybe not many people have noticed, but  there is a small graphic icon which represents seasonal events in Japan, at the top of  our website. 

I have put this  for July.

 

Tanabata festival is held on July 7th in Tokyo, but the original story comes from a Chinese folk story. For details, please go to wikipedia.

We celebrate Tanabata by writhing a wish on a colorful strips of paper called “Tanzaku(短冊）” and hang it on a bamboo branch. It is one of the exciting seasonal events in the year, especially for small kids.

 

Last Saturday during our tour, we visited a Niigata Prefecture pilot shop in Nihombashi. We all wrote our wishes on Tanzaku. <Above picture>  I wished for world peace, happiness for all  …. and a little something  for my private

Construction site of the new Tokyo Tower

Tokyo Tower, built in 1958 is 333m tall and it is still the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world.  It was originally built for TV and radio broadcasting purposes but because we have many more high rise buildings in Tokyo now, the current tower is not high enough to cover all the broadcasting area.  The city is planning a new Tokyo Tower, the “Tokyo Sky Tree”.

 

Last week, I went to the construction site of the Tokyo Sky Tree to see how it is progressing. Of course on my bike!  I couldn’t tell how much progress had been made but it sure is going forward!  At the moment, it’s about 20m high, almost as high as a ten floor apartment.  When the tower is completed in 2011, it will be 610m.

 Riding around this area on my bike, I could still feel the atmosphere of the “old and small downtown Tokyo”.  Maybe there will be drastic changes in this part of town in the coming years.