Katsu Okada

While planning our trip, Katsu was wonderful. Very thorough and responsive. It seemed a bit expensive but with all his planning and ideas, we assumed it was going to be well worth it.
The ryokan he arranged for us in Hakone was run down but in a great location. He said it was one of he best in the all of Japan. Not true! Katsu did not tell us we would not have a private shower. The food at the ryokan was almost inedible. Katsu had said that he arranged for the hotel manager to take very good care of us. The man he named we never met.
The most disappointing part of the trip, however, was the private guided tour in Hiroshima. While Sanae was kind, she was also quite shy, had limited English and unfortunately, not very effective in her role. On the way to the garden, she did not explain anything about what we were seeing from the cab window. Once we arrived at the garden, she had no clear plan and simply followed us without being able to answer our questions. This could have been due to a language barrier, but it raises the question of why we were assigned a guide who wasn't fluent in English.
Our experience was similar on the bus ride to the museum. She remained silent and again did not know the answers to questions we asked as to what we were seeing from the window. When we arrived, she told us that talking was not allowed inside the museum, so she would wait for us at the exit. This left us wondering why she was with us in the first place if she wasn't able to guide us.
Afterward, we decided to continue exploring the park on our own and let her go home. We didn’t need her to accompany us further. She was supposed to accompany us to Miyajima the next day which we paid handsomely for but after the frustrating experience in Hiroshima we chose to do this on our own. We knew she would be unprepared for each site, nor be able to provide explanations. Our other guides we personally hired in Japan, didn’t just cover what we were seeing—they also connected it to Japanese culture, enriching our experience along the way. This is what we had come to expect and assumed, from what Katsu had said, would continue in Hiroshima.
Upon our return to the states, we explained all of this to Katsu and asked for a refund of the private tour of Hiroshima. His solution was to offer us another private tour when we return to Japan. It is very unlikely that I will return to Japan and if I did I would never use his services. Additionally, I will not recommend him or his company Next Japan Travel.