Shohei Yamamoto

What places and activities do you specialize in?

"Based in Kyoto, we are most knowledgeable about Kyoto and other Kansai regions (Osaka, Nara, Kobe, etc). Having said that, we regularly arrange custom tours in most of the popular destinations in Japan (Tokyo, Mount Fuji and Hakone, Kanazawa, Takayama, Hiroshima, Mount Koya etc) in coordination with local guides.

Apart from travel agency, we run our own cooking class in Tokyo and Kyoto (Cooking Sun). So if the customers are interested in cooking, we delightfully recommend our cooking class!"

How did you get involved in travel?

"In 2013, when I was studying abroad for an MBA after quitting my job, I entered an entrepreneurial competition that I happened to find on the website of a Japanese newspaper. I applied with the idea of a "Japanese cooking class for foreign tourists" and was accepted. I came back to Japan and founded a small company right after that. A year later, I started a travel agency business too, and I am now."

Please share a unique travel experience you will never forget.

"When I was still a university student, I went on a backpacking trip to the Middle Eastern countries and one day I visited a city called Qamishli in northern Syria. I was invited to the house of an age-old man I spoke to to ask for directions, and spent the day with him and his family relatives. I could hardly understand the language, but they showed me around the city, took me to a soccer league match in the evening, talked seriously about politics, and finally, took me at the photo studio in the city. Nearly 20 years later, I still vividly remember the 2 days with them."