Tour of this month : Local Shopping Street Not Covered in You Guidebook

Got tired of places that are too touristic? Want to shop and eat like a Japanese? Here is a tour for you.
In our monthly tour this Saturday, we will guide you through to a shopping district which is popular among local people, but probably not covered in your guidebook.


You can enjoy Japanese soul foods such as yakitori or takoyaki at food stalls, or take away typical home-style dishes such as oden or various sort of cooked vegetables, fish and meat.

-Here are details.
Tour Date & Time: 10:00-12:00 am, Saturday May 27th
Meeting time: 9:45am - 10:00am at the No. 1 exit of Toyocho station (T14) on the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line.

No need to book in advance. Just find us wearing the deep blue short coat with the name of "KEV" at the Toyocho station. But if you want to make sure, or have any question, please contact us using the this form, so that we can serve you better.
(choose course M:monthly course)

For more information regarding the tour, visit here:

See you soon!

IHI Stage Around Tokyo

A new theatre opened at Toyosu, Koto-ku, Tokyo on 30th March, 2017. The unique mechanisms inside the theatre set it apart as most innovative design in the theatre architectures in Asia – the new unheard-of stage around the rotating seating floor.

An opening performance is “Seven Souls In The Skull Castle” (30/March – 12/June) as series one out of four (each performance with new casting of artists), with leading roles by Messrs. Shun Oguri and Koji Yamamoto, both of them are most rightly matured actor in their career.  

Date goes back to after a decade or so of The Civil War Age (1467～1573 in Japan) when numerous young commanders of Samurai army with ambition to establish his regime fought each other or overthrown their superiors until nearly whole country laid waste.  

The eastern plain villages far away from the Capital were the only places left intact.  Now the villages were raided by Eastern Plain Demon Skull Corps, lead by Tenmao.

A wandering Samurai without lord (Sutenosuke) and an owner of red-light district in the villages (Ranbei) fight against Tenmao. 

In fact, the three of them (all under the false names) spent time together in the past.  They were some of the defeated warriors on the run who lost their military commander during the Civil War Age – escaped, hidden and managed to live to the present day.  

Ranbei, in particular, was the late commander’s military aides who supposed to fight to the death (according to the traditional code of ethics and behavior of Samurai warriors in the feudal society.)  

The three of them struggle for restoration of their lives again, each one with hopes being distorted, shattered or even severed.

(I cannot wait to see the performance for the 2nd time in June!)

(by Kyoko)

For more information, please visit here.

Flowers here and there

The beautiful cherry blossom season was over.  Then what comes next?
Lots of flowers such as Azalea, tulip, rose, wisteria and iris. They make us feel relaxed. Here are the flowers in Koto-city.

Azaleas on Kiyosumi Street

Roses at Kiba park

Tulips at Kiba

Wisterias at Furuishiba

These are the irises at Kiba Park. Iris means rainbow in Greek and was named after the Goddess of Rainbow in the Greek mythology. In the language of flowers iris means ‘hope, message, faith, friendship, wisdom’.


In Minato-city, at Nezu Museum, kakitsubata(rabbit-ear iris) is in full bloom in the garden. It’s the special season you are able to see the amazing colors of purple and green. Irises are aquatic plants so you feel relaxed watching them in the pond.

There is a Japanese art exhibition at Nezu museum until the fourteenth of May 2017.
These are Kakitsubata screens (detail) the National Treasure painted by Ogata Korin in eighteenth century. These screens are opened to the public only this limited period of time. Lots of people including foreigners visit the museum to see the paintings and irises in the garden. Let’s enjoy the beautiful flower season here and there in Tokyo.            

  (by Jacky)

Buddha’s Birthday Ceremony

April 8 is the birthday of the Buddha. This is called as “the flower festival”, people go to a temple and pour amacha(sweet tea) water on an image of Buddha.

Above picture shows a person who was pouring sweet tea over an image at a temple at Koto city in Tokyo on April 8, 2017.

The small black statuette at the center is Buddha of birth, the water like liquid is sweet tea made from hydrangea leaves.

Why people pour sweet tea over the statuette? According to the legend, honeydew felt down from the sky at Buddha’s birth. So we take after it with sweet tea. In this way people celebrate Buddha’s birthday and appreciate for His Divine protections.
I hope you will try this on next April here in Japan.

(by Shoichiro)

Please also see our post ?   Another Flower Festiva