Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

I've been to Japan before, but my cousin from Chicago had never been. What better way to experience different kinds of food than an arigato walking tour? Ema took us to one of the bigger yakitori places, then sashimi, karaage, croquettes, then walking through and around Golden Gai just to get us in the mood for a perfect bowl of ramen (I love "hard" noodles, so I really liked it). In between turns were historical snippets and him pointing out landmarks, and making sure we got photos to remember by. Capped the night with hot boba tea as flurries started to fall. Lovely experience and highly recommended.

We just returned from Japan so I wanted to definitely sit down and make the time to tell the world about some of the tours and places we visited. We had an opportunity to take a morning tour of Tsukiji fish market ("Private Tsukiji Breakfast") in Tokyo with Shigeki-san of Arigato travel. This was our 2nd visit to Tsukiji and our first visit was with a tour guide as well. However, the difference was night and day. Our first tour was more of a person who just walked the stalls with us speaking Japanese when we wanted to order something. Helpful, but not in-depth by any means. Shigeki-san gave us the full treatment including a carefully thought-out plan including a coffee while we discussed our day, a quick sit-down bite to eat before we got started on the tour, bites of traditional and new tik-tok-y type of foods and recommendations on where we should come back should we want to buy anything like knives or a wasabi-grater. I'm in my 50's and I've loved Japanese culture for a while and I will even admit that I learned 3 or 4 new things on this tour. My entire family had an absolute blast picking out our foods while walking the stalls of Tsukiji, then sitting down for our "picnic" to enjoy them when we were done. Shigeki-san was an excellent host - upbeat, knowledgeable, and very friendly. We highly recommend him and this tour at Arigato Travel/Food Tours.

We did the 3 Hour tour with Laiana in Uji where we covered a few shrines and temples, lunch included, a personal matcha experience and we got to try other Japanese treats. I think highly recommend this tour when in Uji for a unique experience. Thank you Laiana for sharing your knowledge, spending half the day with us and also adjusting our itinerary as needed due to delays. We are super appreciative given we know this is not the norm. It was lovely getting to know you and we learnt a lot about history, customers and Japanese etiquette.

We had an amazing matcha tour in Uji with Laiana - it was one of the highlights of my trip. Our guide was warm, knowledgeable, and brought local history to life. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch, delicious matcha sweets and ice cream, and visited beautiful temples, museum and a peaceful shrine. A perfect blend of culture, learning, and incredible flavors — highly recommend!

We did two food tours with Arigato during our recent trip—one in Tokyo with the incredibly entertaining Daniel, and another in old-town Osaka with the wonderful Natsumi. Both were fantastic experiences! The Tokyo tour included sushi so good it literally brought a tear to my eye, and the Osaka tour was a total blast from start to finish. Highly recommend Arigato and their amazing guides!