Big Five – FeedSince 2003, my team and I have repeatedly visited Japan with one goal. How to get beyond the typical Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto circuit. That move was amplified during the pandemic as it led to the current guide shortage that causes stop sells regularly in Japan. Well, what better way to understand the new class of guides entering Japan then by sending a former guide back to Japan, to see things from a different perspective. My colleague Tatiana started in Kyoto and Osaka, skipping the tourism center of Tokyo and Hakone on purpose. This is the first of a three-part dispatch sharing her observations.
Stay tuned and enjoy the video.
Japan is now in everyone’s conversations and on everyone’s list of favorite places to visit. Each traveler has a different reason for going: food, temples, safety, culture, nature, or simply the feeling of being somewhere beautifully different.
I visited Japan last month to meet with our guide team, walked the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trail, and discovered new and unique areas beyond the traditional triangle of Tokyo, Kyoto/Osaka, and Hakone.
Today, I would like to talk about Japanese culture and some of the guides who impressed me. I will share the other two topics in the next dispatches.
As a former guide myself, I believe the role of a guide is crucial. A guide can shape not only your trip, but also how you perceive the country you’re visiting. No matter how much you prepare for your trip, how many books you read, how many people you talk to, how many videos you watch before, your experience in a country will always be uniquely yours. How you perceive the people, what you notice, and what you carry home in your memories and in your heart will be yours alone.
There is never just one perception, one opinion, or one way to tell a story. And we must also consider ourselves: what we bring into a country, how we interact with locals, how open we are to the moment.
Japanese people, in general, are very polite. They use gentle, respectful language, speak in soft tones, and choose their words carefully. Respect is a core cultural value, and you see it immediately in the way they bow. They are quiet, mindful of personal space, and deeply considerate.
I met many guides, but these wonderful women made a lasting impact on me. In Japanese culture, there is a phrase: “one time, one meeting” (ichigo ichie). Ichigo ichie is the idea that every encounter, even a brief one, is unique and will never happen in the same way again. This is exactly what I felt with every person I met. I will carry ichigo ichie with me because it invites us to treat the present as something precious, not casual. It asks us to leave behind the preconceptions we often carry. It’s an invitation to slow down and give your full attention to the person in front of you. Presence becomes a form of respect. It becomes sacred. These small interactions transform the everyday into something meaningful. And the people who share those moments with you, even briefly, help shape your story.
I walked the streets of Kyoto with Fumiyo, a retired schoolteacher and grandmother, who shared Japan’s culture and history intertwined with stories of her childhood. She grew up in a world shaped by post‑war rebuilding, traditional village life, and the beginnings of modern Japan, a childhood very different from what we see today. She told me about running through rice fields, catching beetles, playing hide‑and‑seek in bamboo groves, and swimming in rivers. She lived in a small wooden house, slept on tatami mats, and taught me the beauty of minimalism. She grew up with a strong sense of hope. She learned to prepare miso soup, pickles, rice, and grilled fish from her mother, and she still eats the same breakfast every day. She grew up listening to the radio, long before television arrived, and she loved hearing her grandmother’s stories. It’s no surprise she inherited her storytelling skills.
She also spoke about wa (harmony) and how important it has been in her life. Harmony is the idea that life works best when people move gently with one another, with respect and balance, another foundation of Japanese culture.
And wa brings me to my encounter with Katherine, a young American woman who fell in love with Japanese culture during her university days in New Mexico. After taking two semesters of Japanese, she decided to leave her life in the U.S. and move to Japan ten years ago, a quietly transformative experience she is still living. Her life has been shaped by curiosity, courage, and a deep love for place, just as harmony teaches.
Coming from New Mexico, she grew up with big skies and open landscapes. In Kyoto, she found a different kind of wilderness: cedar forests, mountain temples, and narrow trails lined with stone statues. We hiked the old samurai trail (near Nara), the path warriors once took to visit the town where swords were made. Another gifted storyteller, she transported me to that era with every step. She shared her struggles and successes with Japanese and with keigo (the respectful language). But every day she improves, because every new word she learns opens another door into the culture she loves so much.
Being close to nature with her, she taught me about yūgen, a profound, mysterious sense of beauty, not the beauty you see, but the beauty you feel, for instance, the moon behind clouds, distant mountains, a quiet temple at dusk. It’s the emotion that lives in the unseen.
Then, there was Migen, a woman in her 40’s who traveled the world and chose to settle in a small town outside Kyoto because the city taught her to listen to silence, to see what your eyes can’t, and to slow down. She told me that in all the other countries she visited, she never understood yūgen, not until she walked through the narrow alleys in Kyoto at sunrise, when the day is just beginning, or when she looked closely at the delicate craftsmanship of a temple roof. She felt moved but couldn’t explain why. Kyoto was the first place where her heart finally unclenched. It was there that she met an older Japanese woman by chance in a tea shop. She was drawn to her kindness and quiet strength and soon realized this was the mother she didn’t know she needed. Her Japanese mother became her anchor. Their bond was also yūgen, not loud affection, but a quiet, profound connection.
Throughout my time in Japan, I felt a wholehearted hospitality what the Japanese call omotenashi, serving others with sincerity, without expecting anything in return. It’s why Japanese service feels so warm and effortless.
I am bowing to you.
