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!

Festival at Atago Shrine

We operated the route B  (Sumo Wrestler’s Ride) tour today, with our always nice and cheerful guests. We made a extra stop at Atago Shrine (usually only on route A-Tokyo Bay Ride) as today was the day of the biennial festival.

The “Shusse no Kaidan Matsuri (Steps to Success Festival)” is based on a famous legend going back some four hundred years. (If you are interestetd in this legend, please join our bike tour!! )

High-spirited men carrying a portable shrine down the steps calling out ” Wa-Shoi” in a very loud voice. It’s quite exciting to watch. We were really lucky that we caught the event just in time today !

Objection!

 

Yesterday I read an article on BBC.com saying that Tokyo is now the ‘most espensive expat city’ in the world. The reporter said in the article

>  that Tokyo’s top slot in the ranking would not surprise locals, who could find themselves paying $15 for a watermelon and $25 for a mango.

What !?  A mango costs U$25?  Impossible. Of course when people buy mangos at very expensive department stores where gifts are bought, they might cost that much, but a local Tokyoite like me buy fruits at a nearby supermarket. I had to do some market research last evening and found out it cost 680 yen (U$7) for a domestic mango and 298 yen (U$ 3) for a Mexican mango.

I know that some of the expats live in luxury apartments and shop at high end supermarkets…  maybe the BBC reporter is also having a good life in Tokyo ?!

 Tokyo Originally had and image of being “an expensive city” and togehter with the image of being “a very far place”. Tokyo has had few overseas visitors for a very long time. Finally the Japanese government is stepping up its campaign with “YOKOSO! Japan”. While the exchange rate does have a large impact as the article has mentioned, please remember that Tokyo (and Japan) is not necessarily expensive, there are many budget friendly way to travel. Visit Japan, you will know

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

Long Ride Event @Japan in 2009

While we are operators of a city bike tour, a fun ride with many stops in between, lots of chatting, a bit of walking, lunch and rest…if you are a more serious cyclist, here are a few things to you might want to try! 

Click here for a larger image. (MS Excel file will open)

 This year, I want to try my first ever hill climb but maybe in the autumn…summer might be too hot :p

The May Grand Sumo Tournament @Tokyo

Photo by Antoine

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you know, Sumo is Japan’s  national sport and a type of  martial arts, but it originally was a religious ritual of Shinto (Japan’s indigenous religion). The story can be traced back to ancient times and the ritual was used to tell the harvest would be rich or poor, by seeking the divine intention of the Gods.

In the 16th century, it became an entertainment sport and during the Edo period many people enjoyed watching Sumo at shrines and temples, and this is the origin of current professional Sumo.

 Photo by M. Abe (TGCT)

(He is wearing a mask! To protect himself from the swine flu!?)

 

 

 

There are six Grand Sumo tournaments (Hon Basho) each year, three of them are held in Ryogoku, at the Sumo Hall (Ryogoku Kokugikan) in Tokyo. They are called Tokyo Basho and have tournaments in January, May and September every year. This year’s May Grand Sumo Tournament (Tokyo Basho) started on May 10th and will end on the 24th.

Everyday the wrestling match (bout) starts in the early morning for lower rank wrestlers and  continues until late afternoon for higher rank wrestlers’. During this period, many Sumo wrestlers can be seen around the Sumo Hall and you will know right away who the low rank wrestlers are and who are high. The high rank wrestlers are walking together with their assistants and the lower rank wrestlers are walking by themselves carrying their own belongings. You might also be able to tell the difference from their Kimono (traditional Japanese clothing) – those wearing simple cotton Kimono are lower in rank, and those wearing luxury silk Kimono in beautiful colour are of course higher in rank!  

The general admission tickets are available at 8:00 AM at the Sumo hall main gate at 2,100yen. With this ticket, you can stay for the whole day ! Maybe worth a try!?

We have a bike tour riding through Ryogoku area every Sunday. Please check here!

Cycling in the spring day

<Photo   Cycling in Marunouchi decorated with beautiful tulips in front of Tokyo station which will be restored to original style until 2011>

Today we had very nice cycling tour under sunny blue sky. Actually, in the season of cherry blossoms, the sky is often hazy and the misty spring sky makes tranquil scene. So it is not always good chance for cycling and cherry blossom viewing outside. But today the weather was so nice and skies are blue, we could enjoy one day cycling tour in Tokyo.

<Photo @Zojoji near Tokyo tower>

This year’s first tour

We had this year’s first tour last Saturday.

A guest from Korea gave us nice souvenirs (=omiyage) -Korean liquor and laver.

Thanks!!