★★★★★

We organised a tour with Ken as soon as we knew we were going to Japan. We had wanted to see the world famous Ashikaga Flower Park, so Ken put together a private tour for 4 of us.

A beautiful clean, spacious vehicle met us at the meeting point – with Ken, of course!
We had the most wonderful day exploring Ashikaga, eating ramen, Wisteria ice creams and admiring some of the oldest wisterias I have ever seen. The perfume in the park was divine, as peonies, wisteria, azaleas, snap dragons, hellebores….the list is endless – we’re all in flower, as well as some gorgeous double cherry trees.

After the park, Ken took us to an old style shopping village / rest stop, which was very atmospheric. Such a wonderful day was had by all, and we highly recommend you contact Ken and have him organise something special for you.

Adrienne and Rob Hartley, and Sam and Keitha Craig

★★★★★

Our family of six (including two teens/two adult children) spent two full days with Ken as our trusted guide around Tokyo in January 2024. We managed to cover so much more of the City – and learnt so much about the history – compared to if we had been travelling without his expert knowledge. Ken also succeeded in buying highly sought after SUMO tournament tickets for us all – soooooo exciting and addictive to watch. In addition to visiting many historical places of interest, where Ken educated us with his informative background information, we also spent time at the fascinating Tsukiji Fish Market followed by Shimokitazawa where we spent hours scouring the vintage clothing stores and Ken was extremely patient!! By our third day without Ken we were confident finding our way around Tokyo hopping on and off the trains. We highly recommend Ken’s services as a Tokyo guide!!!!!

The WM family
Sydney, Australia

★★★★★

Ken was a wonderful guide, who helped me and my 12 year old son enjoy a great day in Tokyo, at the start of our first time in the city. He was friendly, informative, helpful and efficient, and really added to our experience with his local knowledge about the city and culture… and by helping us find our way round, so we could fit a lot into the day. Right from when I first contacted Ken, he communicated quickly and made a great effort to tailor our itinerary to suit our interests. I would certainly recommend him as a great guide. He also helped set us up for further exploring on our own. Thanks Ken!

Emma, Australia

★★★★★

We (including my husband, friends and their adult daughter) just returned home from a phenomenal trip to Japan. Our last stop was Tokyo and we sought out a guide for the 6 days we were there (May 26 through June 2, 2023). We were very lucky, We were able to reach Ken Oka, Japan Culture Guide from Zen Flow Planning. He assisted us far in advance in planning our itinerary and was with us each of the 6 days. Ken is a great guide. He knows Tokyo extremely well. He is a good conversationalist…making each day enjoyable as we explored Tokyo and the surrounding areas. Simply put, the tour was excellent. We left no rock unturned. If you are looking for nice, calm, centered, genuine and knowledgeable tour guide, Ken is you person.

Christopher Tower
California USA

★★★★★

Hello Ken,

We just wanted to thank you for a wonderful tour experience last week. We had such an enriching experience with you and really got to see a lot of Tokyo that we wouldn’t have seen on our own. We are especially grateful for your presence and guidance on the day trip to Hakone. It would have been so much more difficult and time consuming had we done it on our own, and now Hakone is one of the highlights of our trip. There were also so many little things that we learned from you that helped during the rest of our week in Tokyo. Thank you so much and I hope you and your family have a wonderful new year! We will definitely be in touch when we come to Tokyo again.

With much gratitude,
Mike, Chris, Kate, and Lucy

★★★★★

Dear Ken,
Hope you are well.
Just wanted to thank you for the invaluable service you provided us. It helped us negotiate are movements around Tokyo with much ease. We had a great time everywhere we went even seeing the last remnants of cherry blossoms in Hakodate. We made the trip to Mount Fuji on our second last day and had wonderful weather to see the mountain. I think Japan is amazing country and its people have a sense of humanity and generosity seldom seen anywhere.
We found our way back to the tempura restaurant you introduced us to on the first day and we were treated like royalty, almost!
So thank you again very much and our best wishes to you in your future endeavors.
Regards,

Patrick – Canada

★★★★★

Hi Ken
Thanks so much for a most enjoyable tour today. We had a great time in particular enjoying the variety of experiences. It was lovely to meet you.
Kind regards

Judy and Michael Berger
Australia

★★★★★

Hi Ken,

I wanted to thank you once again for such a wonderful day touring. I really enjoyed it and appreciated everything you did to accommodate my wishes! I saw so much!
I’m now on the bullet train to Osaka, with your assistance buying the tickets!

Thanks again and hope you get some golf in soon!

Kind regards

Jackie Boyer
Australia

★★★★★

We have just had the privilege of using Ken as our guide in Tokyo. We had a wonderful time and three days of culture and sightseeing. From the moment, I contacted Ken online, he came up with a fantastic itinerary tailor-made to us. Communication in English was excellent and efficient. We were immediately relaxed and confident.

We travelled around the city using prepaid Metro cards provided by Ken, which was very welcome and efficient. Ken was particularly sensitive to our needs as my husband has some slight mobility issues. He always found an escalator or lift and warned us if there was excessive walking. Ken is very knowledgeable, and provides some visual resources to support his guiding. We feel very lucky to have found Ken.

He is highly recommended, but be sure to book in advance because I’m sure he will be busy. Thank you so much

Sharon and Andrew
UK

★★★★★

Hi Ken,
All four of us want to thank you profusely for the absolutely fabulous guiding you gave us when we arrived in Tokyo!!
In those two mornings, we learned and experience much more than we could have imagined. You are a gifted communicator and do your job with style and great skill!
Thank you so much: see you next time!

Bruce, Lisa, Steve and Jan.
Australia

★★★★★

Ken, the owner of Zenflow Tours, is the true Zen Tokyo Tour! He went far beyond just a standard tour! We arrived late our first night and he went to our dinner reservation and held it for our family! We navigated the subway with ease and viewed the off-beaten attractions of the city!

Take the stress out of your visit to Tokyo, and Ken will surprise you with many traditional sites!

Meeting you at your hotel is just another 5-star blessing!

The Halderman Family Business
Swell Adventure Tours
Michele

★★★★★

It was our first trip to Japan as tourists, and we were not confident about finding our way around on public transportation. Instead of taking one of Ken’s excellent cultural tours, we asked him to teach us how to understand and use Tokyo’s complex transport system. We had a great day! Not only did we see some of the key sights around town, but we also learned how to navigate the Underground system, flag down taxis, use the bus, and purchase a travel pass. Afterward, we enjoyed a beer and a meal together in a local pub – an amazing way to end a busy day.

Ken’s support on our first day in Tokyo was invaluable. I would highly recommend him as a tour guide and as a great person to spend time with.

Deborah Allday
UK

★★★★★

It was very nice meeting you, Ken,
Thank you for a very interesting 4 days of touring in and around Tokyo.

Your knowledge of the history, customs, and religion was very informative and helped us understand more about Japanese culture. You made it fun but educated us at the same time.

Thanks again

Doug and Kathy Harris
Toronto, ON, Canada

★★★★★

I recently had the pleasure of using Ken Oka as my tour guide in Tokyo. I was a solo traveler. We had two separate four hour tours that I was able to tailor to my interests. Ken met me at my hotel and we journeyed from there both days. He was professional and knowledgeable. He was also courteous and pleasant to work with. I could relax and enjoy my trip leaving the logistics of subway travel etc to Ken. It made for a very memorable experience. Ken even went above and beyond when I broke my eyeglasses. He found a place for me to get new glasses which we ordered before we set out for our day and picked up at the end of the day. He was also available by email for me to ask questions prior to my departure to Tokyo.

I highly recommend him as a tour guide!

Teresa Shook

★★★★★

The smartest thing I did to ensure the success of our recent visit to Tokyo was to select Ken Oka as our Guide. We asked Ken to arrange three off our five-days in Tokyo over August/September 2019, that would extend our previous exposure to Japanese art and artefacts, museums, gardens, classic and modern architecture and traditional woodblock prints. He devised an excellent itinerary that more than met our expectations. As well as being well across these topics Ken proved to be a most enjoyable companion and was very considerate of our wellbeing; he even had a booklet showing the lifts and escalators that linked the various levels that the Tokyo train networks operate on!

We have no hesitation in recommending Ken’s service to others wanting to understand a bit more about this fascinating culture and amazing metropolis.

Dorothy & Jeremy Caldicott
Melbourne, Australia

★★★★★

Tokyo has more vinyl record stores than any other city in the world and if you’re a collector like my wife and I there is no one better to help you navigate the scene than Ken. His detailed preparation and invaluable knowledge of Tokyo means you can focus on seeing as many sellers as possible in the time you have. What could have taken us a week or more took just a few days. Believe us when we say some sellers are as hard to find as the records themselves!

Mark Leek
Melbourne, Australia

★★★★★

Ken is best described as a friend guide.

It is good to book Ken’s services in advance but if you need a guide at the last minute do not hesitate to contact him because if he has a vacancy he will work quickly to meet your needs. We are only English speakers and we found Ken to be an excellent communicator. Ken’s style of guiding is not to give directions and set the pace. He almost stays in the background while at the same time making sure you are seeing and doing what you want with the maximum comfort and ease.

He is very flexible and happy to help you negotiate some train travel and sightseeing by yourselves when you are feeling confident. Ken is 100% reliable and very resourceful. I had a medical situation during my visit and he took charge of everything. He was my Guardian Angel.

There was a lot to enjoy in Tokyo and best of all for my husband and I was meeting Ken.

Ruth & David Melbourne, Australia

★★★★★

We have only good things to say about our 2019 Tokyo trip!! What a city and delicious food. Nothing of this would’ve been possible without our guide Ken Oka from Japan Culture Guide.

Since I planned this trip from home in the USA and I contacted Ken, he was open and very accommodating to fit or top sites to visit in our 3 days in Tokyo. This included from Shrines, beautiful architect, amazing food, different neighborhood culture, markets, museums, palaces and much more. Ken created a 3 day schedule for us according to our request that it was perfect, we try to do so much in such a short time but he was a good sport!

We where super happy with his service, navigating in Tokyo and trying to figure it out by ourselves the metro lines would have taken so much precious time, time that it was well spent in visiting sites and eating so much food.

I really like that Ken it was very nice and very professional, he was always looking after us and making sure to answer any question, translate for us or help us with a purchase. Also,he was open to change or to modify the itinerary if needed in case we decide to stay longer in a place or skip a place, or take a break he always had a great attitude… for sure thumbs up!!

We didn’t want to go with other guides services because they have their own schedule & itinerary and there is no much for you to change, Ken Oka will make sure to put together a personalize Tokyo tour according of what you want to see or let him to recommend you an itinerary that can fit your interest.

Me, my husband & our best friend were super happy to had Ken as a guide. 100% recommended.

Inna, Sven & Gina – USA

★★★★★

We thoroughly enjoyed our full day tour of Tokyo with Ken. His email communication from the time I first contacted him until the morning he met us at our hotel was excellent and helped us greatly with all of the logistics. He also prepared a detailed and very professional itinerary for us so we knew where and what we were about to embark upon. Upon meeting us, he handed us pass cards for the trains and subways which made our moving around the city effortless. Prior to our trip we mentioned that we wished to eat authentic Japanese food while there. He made reservations for lunch for us at a Japanese restaurant the we enjoyed very much. Even though he would not be joining us for dinner, he made reservations and arranged for a multi-course dinner for us which was fabulous. The entire dining experience was one of the highlights of our day.

Ken’s tour gave us an excellent taste of the city and we felt we saw many cross sections of Tokyo. He is very knowledgeable about the history of Tokyo and gave us an excellent explanation of the history of the emperors, the Imperial Palace and the Meiji Shrine. We were lucky to have the opportunity to visit the beautiful Rikugien Gardens while the Azaleas were in bloom. The colors of the flowers were brilliant and the entire scene was a special experience. Ken took us to a teahouse in the gardens and we sat amid the lovely scenery while drinking a cup of tea. In addition, Ken took us through the Asakusa shopping area to the Sensoji Temple and Asakusa Shrine and explained the history of both to us.

Ken is an outstanding tour guide and we highly recommend him. We hope to have the opportunity to visit Japan in the future and tour with Ken again.

Judy and Mark – USA

★★★★★

.. Thank you again for a wonderful day and for sharing so much information with us. It was a very informative and fun day for us all and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. It was a pleasure to meet you.
Regards,

​Mike J. Denny, Britain

★★★★★

Thanks for sharing your in-depth knowledge of Japanese history and culture with us. It was a very informative personal guided tour.

Sincere appreciation

Margaret and Dorothy, Australia

★★★★★

We’re so glad Ken connected us with Etsuko as our guide because she is top notch! She exceeded ALL expectations and continuously went above and beyond to ensure that our first trip to Japan would be amazing. Etsuko sincerely wants to get to know each and every one of her visitors and is extremely kind, genuine, and personable. She previously lived in the USA and still visits California. In addition, she teaches English in Japan so she speaks English fluently.

She carefully crafted a beautiful itinerary of all the places we wanted to visit. She always responded quickly and efficiently every time I had a question. She even helped answer questions that didn’t have anything to do with our tour with her. For example, Etsuko advised us to go through the immigration gate with an immigration officer and get stamps on our passports when we first arrived in Japan, in order to get tax free shopping. Otherwise, if we went to the automated entrance, which we were initially planning to do, then our passports would not be stamped, and we wouldn’t be able to get tax refunds. Also, while planning our family vacation, I was having a difficult time figuring out where to purchase our shinkansen tickets in advance for our day trip to Kyoto. So she sent me the link where I could buy them online.

The day of our tour with Etsuko, she showed up on time and shared a wealth of knowledge of the many different places we visited throughout Tokyo. She also took us to the area where she lives, so we could enjoy a beautiful view of the Meguro River away from the crowds.

Thank you Etsuko for helping make our trip even more magical, special, and memorable! We highly recommend Etsuko, Ken Oka, and ZEN Flow Planning and we would not hesitate to contact them again the next time we visit Japan.

Theresa, Jonathan, and Jade
Santa Barbara, California, USA

★★★★★

Hi Ken, just a quick note as we only just got back to the hotel and we’re about to him out for dinner to say what a wonderful day we had an excellent Machi was as our guide.
I will expand more if you let me know where the best place to do a review, but we could not have asked for anything better or anyone better. The itinerary was perfect. We were very lucky with the weather, the timing and accessibility, which all combined with her knowledge and charm to make an excellent day.

I can only say I’m delighted google brought to you!
Thank you for dealing with all my annoying requests and constant nagging, but I think we got there in the end, and we would have no hesitation in recommending you and anyone of your team to guide anyone around Tokyo your lovely city.
Please tell her how impressed with her, although I will be doing the same myself

From Murray Lee

★★★★★

Makoto,
Christine and myself thank you from the bottom of our hearts, you were such a magnificent guide, so considerate of our needs, and made our day in Tokyo one we will never forget.
I have given your contact details to a friend on the ship, they are a nice couple and are going to contact you. Once again thank you thank you so much.

Love from Christine and Jan

★★★★★

Hi Nancy,

We thoroughly enjoyed the guided tour that you arranged for us and we will definitely try to book personal tour guides in the future wherever we go.

We wanted to make the most of our short time in Tokyo and decided to use the services of a personal guide to avoid the additional burden of working out how to navigate the biggest city in the world and avoid wasting precious time. We were still tired from our long flight the previous day so it was great to be guided through the city and just focus on the amazing sights. Our guide contacted us before our visit to find out what we wanted to see and suggested this tour. We specifically wanted to see some Japanese gardens and learn about the history of Tokyo, the culture and modern day Tokyo…

…The tour was taken at our own pace and we had plenty of time to chat with Nancy and discuss all aspects of Japanese life and their culture. We doubt that we would have had this opportunity if we had been part of a group tour.

Thank you Ken for referring us to Nancy and thank you Nancy for a memorable day in Tokyo.

Kay and Mike