Harnessing Nature to Create Beauty and Health A half day private car Tokyo tour of a bonsai studio miso shop and feudal garden

Our bilingual guide and private car will pick you up at your hotel and drive just outside the city center to the beautiful studio of a master bonsai grower with hundreds of bonsai trees, ranging from tiny miniatures to centuries old large trees. Some are worth almost one million US dollars! You’ll learn about what bonsai growers try to achieve and the techniques and tools they use to shape these exquisite works of natural art.
 
Next it’s not a long drive to a large traditional shop selling thirty varieties of the Japanese staple food miso, a fermented soybean paste used as a daily soup and a flavoring in many dishes. The shop’s friendly staff will let you sample small tastes of misos ranging from rich, dark miso to sweeter white misos. Your guide will also show you many other traditional foods in the store such as Japanese pickles, dried foods such as seaweed and bonita flakes (the main sources of the umami flavor so prized in Japanese cuisine) and many others. If you really want to understand what makes Japanese food so great, this store is a good place to start.
 
Then back to your clean, comfortable car to lovely feudal garden which is an oasis of beauty amidst the bustling city. Combining greenery, rocks and water to simulate a vast natural scene, traditional Japanese gardeners strive for an asymmetric natural beauty so different from the geometric splendor of western gardens like Versailles. We’ll circle the entire garden, taking in the beauty as well as learning about its history—built by a wealthy Edo merchant and bought by a feudal lord, then by a wealthy industrial family and then made a public garden after the great earthquake in Tokyo of 1923. That’s a lot of beauty and history in one space!
 
The tour fee includes your guide, transportation including hotel pickup and drop-off, admission to the bonsai studio and the garden, and some miso samples at the store.
 
Treat yourself to a special half-day in Tokyo exploring the exquisite results of Japanese culture’s long engagement with nature!
This tour is operated with our partner company Tokyo Way KK.