Tanuki Stories – Japan Beyond the Surface

I guide travellers who want to experience Japan authentically, not just see it. To move beyond the postcard and the tourist stage, engaging with a deeper reality shaped by implicit meanings, unwritten rules, and silences that matter as much as words.

I mainly work in the Kansai region — Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, and Himeji — areas that offer very different social and cultural contexts, ideal for understanding the many facets of Japanese society.

Through lived experiences on the ground — everyday places, cultural practices, food, craftsmanship, and real encounters — I help groups understand the context that gives meaning to what they see. With me, you take home an experience that allows you to read what usually remains invisible: the why behind gestures, spaces, and behaviours.

I work with small groups (up to 16–18 people) to offer authentic cultural mediation, fostering dialogue, participation, and a more conscious way of experiencing Japan.