Good Memories in 2015

Many tourists visited Tokyo in 2015. I also enjoyed my tour guide days with many wonderful guests.

I guided an American honeymoon couple to Matsumoto in April. It was snowing in the morning, which is very rare after cherry blossoms started to open, but, they were really impressed with Matsumoto Castle in Nagano surrounded with a lot of cherry blossoms. Luckily, they could also see the unusual view of snowing and cherry blossoms from the windows of the Azusa train from Tokyo t...o Matsumoto.

Another honeymoon couple enjoyed a Tokyo tour and sushi making in my home. After having a Sushi-party, I put a kimono on her. She was a cute lady and looked like an elegant Japanese girl standing in traditional Japanese style.

I accompanied two smart boys to the Japanese Sword Museum, where we can appreciate genuine swords including several national treasures. After visiting it, they took pictures of hydrangeas along the road. The elder brother wanted to study in Japan when he became a university student and promised me that he would contact me at that time.

A family from England visited Pokemon Center MEGA TOKTO after visiting Tsukiji fish market and making Sushi in my home. There is a big shopping complex called Sunshine City within 3 minutes from my house. There is not only Pokemon Center but also J-WORLD and NAMJATOWN, both of which are Manga and Anime theme parks. Actually, the street called Otome Road near my condo is popular as a Cosplay street.

An E-mail from My Guest

Dear “Masa”:

We are back home in Nevada and we wanted to thank you for your wonderful contribution to our visit to Japan.

We greatly enjoyed meeting you and having you spend so much time with us, and, of course, we will never forget the marvelous experience of your teaching us to make sushi!

Our most sincere thanks to you.

With warmest regards,

M and P

 

 

Dear M and P,

Thank you very much for sending me your wonderful e-mail. I hope you enjoyed walking from the Ginza-Ichome station on the Yurakucho-subway-line along Ginza Street to your hotel after making sushi in my house.

You are such a sophisticated and fashionable couple. Actually, I showed your picture, which I took at that time, to my daughter-in-law and she said, "He looks like a movie star."

I think you enjoyed the colored leaves in the mountainous areas in Japan but now it is the full season of colored leaves in Tokyo. I will attach a picture that I took from my house. I recommend you visit Japan again in April, when the cherry blossoms are so beautiful. If you visit Japan again, please let me know.

Sincerely,
Masa

The Big Typhoon

I guided two couples from Texas around Tsukiji Market and taught them how to make Sushi in my house on the fourth. They were supposed to go back to their country on the sixth. They were worried about the big typhoon which was said to be hitting Japan that day. Actually, the typhoon stopped many flights and even Narita Express trains. I was safe in my house but I was so worried about them. According to their tour agent, their flight was canceled so they had to stay in Tokyo for one more night. After the typhoon had moved to the area north of Tokyo, it became so fine. I hope they could enjoy an extra holiday afternoon under the beautiful blue sky.

Sushi Making from Many Countries

A lot of tourists from America, England, Italy and Australia have enjoyed making sushi in my house. Look at their smiles. It must be an unforgettable memory in Japan.   
Just before we start to eat, Japanese people say, "Itadakimasu." It means, "I'm going to eat thanks to everything including the rice, fish, vegetables, people who have produced all the ingredients such as farmers and fishermen, shop owners, and people who prepared the meal." Then at the end of the meal, we say, "Gochisosamadeshita," meaning "it was a good meal, thanks to everything."

A Smart Girl from France

A smart girl from France, who is studying six languages and is good at cooking, made three types of sushi in my kitchen with her aunt. She loves Japan and knew many things about Japan especially the cooking words. She studied all of them through the Internet by herself. I was very surprised when she shouted 'Tamagoyaki' as soon as I took a Japanese omelet out of my fridge. I hope she will be a good go-between for France and Japan in the future.

Sushi Making is Popular

Sushi might be an internationally popular food now. Foreign tourists are interested in not only eating sushi but also making sushi. After coming back to Japan from my travels in Europe, I have worked as a sushi instructor three times every ...other day. Actually, making a sushi roll and a rice ball is quite difficult for ordinary people. Japanese sushi chefs are said to spend 10 years to master them. We teach them traditional way as the chefs do and the easy way, using a kit, and give the kit as a souvenir. I hope my guests will make sushi in their home countries using the kit.

A Family from Californis

A family with very cute girls and their friend from California enjoyed making sushi in my house. The three-year-old and four-year-old girls also tried to make sushi without wasabi by themselves. They were so impressed how delicious the real wasabi was and I was so glad that all of my guests looked so satisfied.
 

Nice Couple from Oslo

My guests came from the capital city of Norway, Oslo. They tasted both real wasabi-horseradish and wasabi-paste in a tube, and realized the big difference between them. They have Asian markets in their town so they can buy sushi rice, rice vinegar, and Nori-laver there. However, it's difficult to buy real wasabi-horseradish in their country. They really wanted to take the real wasabi to Oslo as a souvenir. According to a reliable website, they can take it to Norway without any problems but it's impossible to take it to the U.S. I hope they will find wasabi at a nearby department store of their hotel and surprise their friends in Oslo.

A Nice French Couple

A nice French couple made sushi in my house. They bought a block of fresh tuna and wasabi-horse radish at Tsukiji Market and I prepared the other ingredients such as shrimp, scallop, salmon, mackerel, avocado and so on. I usually show my guests how to make sushi-rice, makizushi, nigiri and battleship shaped sushi. Many foreign guests have eaten sushi in their own countries but don't know how to ma...ke sushi-rice. They are very impressed with the delicious sushi rice which they make with me. I have also eaten sushi in several foreign countries and I was always disappointed with it. The most important thing to remember when making sushi-rice is not to mash the rice grains. I have several helpful hints for making good sushi-rice. If you want to know them, please visit my house. Let's make delicious sushi together!!

 

A French Couple and their Daughters

A nice French family came to my house to make sushi after walking around Tsukiji Fish Market with an excellent French speaking guide. All of them really enjoyed traveling around Hiroshima, Hakone and Tokyo. They told us that they would visit Japan someday in autumn to enjoy the beautiful colored leaves. After the sushi party, I guided them to the top floor of my condo to see the view of Tokyo and the Hello-Kitty shop near my house. They are going to back to their country with a lot of nice memories of Japan.

An American Couple from Texas

A nice American couple from Texas visited my house to make sushi. The husband was really good at cooking and I learned how to dice an avocado in my hand, not on a cutting board. After the sushi party, I guided them to Ikebukuro Station through the busy Sunshine City shopping center and shopping mall. They were so interested in the many stores and crowds. Near the station there is a big specialty store selling beautiful Japanese paper with colored patterns. The wife got so excited at the many kinds of sheets of paper.

Sushi-making with an American Family, Arashio-Beya in Ningyo-Cho, and Kasugano-Beya

I worked as a sushi instructor and guide for three days in a row.

On the first day, a family with three daughters from California visited my house after they had bought a block of tuna and wasabi horseradish with my excellent coworker. Though my kitchen was a little bit small for seven people, I had a wonderful time making sushi with them.

On the second day I guided an American couple to Arashio-beya sumo stable in Hama-cho. It was raining so hard and there was a line of foreign people in front of the stable. The sumo tournament ended about ten days ago and it was also a period of a kind of road-show so only a few stables were doing their morning training on that day. Only several visitors can enter the training room at one time and the others usually watch the training through the window facing a narrow road. Unfortunately, it was raining so the window was clouded with moisture. The visitors were allowed to enter in turn so my guests could enter and enjoy watching the training. After that I took them Amazake-yokocho, an old shopping mall. The couple was really interested in the Japanese confectionery, so they took many pictures of beautiful sweets, which depict the spring season, and they bought some traditional sweets.

On the third day, I guided a German gentleman to Kasugano-beya. After their hard training my favorite wrestler, Tochinoshin, allowed us to take pictures with him and I could touch his muscular arm.

A Professional Canadian Chef

A professional Canadian chef visited my house with his expensive sharp knife which he bought at Kappa-Bashi shopping district, where they sell many kinds of food related items, to experience Sushi-making. He also wore a chef's uniform and b...rought his own chopsticks, which he bought in Asakusa, and his own cooking tools such as a spatula and a grater. Oh, my...! I'm not a professional chef. How can I teach him to cook? "Please, learn how an ordinary Japanese housewife makes home-made sushi." He laughed, "OK, I understand. I'm really interested in Japanese home cooking." I taught him how to make the sushi-rice and he showed me his wonderful knife cutting technique. Anyway, we enjoyed cooking and of course our sushi was so delicious. He was born in a small town near Vancouver and didn't know the word 'chef' until he first went to a big party at the age of 9. He was very surprised when he spoke with a chef who earned a lot of money by cooking at the event and decided to be a chef. He loved to see his mother cooking for his family but he couldn't imagine how people can earn money by cooking. He has been working as a private chef in several European cities for 10 years and always pursued the best way to create a good taste. For him, the number one city is Barcelona, and London is the next. Tokyo is the third and Kyoto is the fourth. Anyway, we shared a wonderful time today.

He sent his comment.  ↓
☆　sushi class as brilliant!!!
she is very knowledgeable and nice
i learned a lot
thank you :-)

An Australian Mother

An Australian mother with four children visited my house to learn how to make three types of sushi. She is so good at cooking that she succeeded in making a perfect shaped roll sushi in the traditional way, using a bamboo mat, on her second try. She told me that she would surprise her friends by making delicious sushi at her party.

A Couple from Tahiti

A nice couple from Tahiti enjoyed making sushi in my home. They arrived at Narita yesterday and seemed to be surprised at how busy Tokyo is. A French speaking guide showed them how to cut raw tuna, salmon and scallops with a sharp knife and they observed her carefully.

Let's smile and take pictures before eating the fruits of great effort! Although I couldn't speak directly with them in French, I could communicate with them well thanks to the excellent French speaking guide, M-San. They enjoyed their first tasting of a Japanese persimmon as a dessert. I hope they will have a lot of good memories of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, where they will visit in two weeks.

A French Couple from Switzerland

Sushi Making with an American Couple

My Guests from Dubai

My Teacher's Family

My Guest from London