Kumamoto Castle (Kumamoto-jo) Tours and Tickets

Viewing of the extensive damage to Kumamoto Castle and the resilience of the Japanese people to reconstruct the castle after the earthquake. Our guide Tommy, was excellent in recounting the earthquake damage as she lives in the immediate vicinity

Mieko was a great guide - she contacted me days before already to talk through the itinerary, was providing good suggestions and did fully accommodate our preferences. She was a great guide during the day as well giving lots of background and information for our tour around Mt. Aso and helped us finding the OnePiece Kumamoto Project statues and the shops to buy the memorabilia figures.

This tour is extremely fun and very informative about the culture of Japan and its history. My tour guide. Mikeo was very friendly and very patient with me. She is the best and I would definitely recommend this tour to anyone wants to know about Japan’s culture and history.

Mieko is wonderful. So caring and concerned to make sure you see as much as possible. And so organized.

Aki told stories about life and events that occurred in and around Kumamoto Castle that made to tour more memorable.

The guide Kenzo was great. It was a very hot day and he did a great job with managing our needs with the heat. We went to the Kumamoto castle Suizenji gardens and Uchitsuboi author house plus lunch at Akaushi yoka yoka. Kenzo was very knowledgeable and fun to talk to. He structured the tour by asking what we were interested in. He also went out of his way after the tour was over to walk us to a Lawsons store so we could pick up our concert tickets for the next day and helped translate the machine. Above and beyond. Great tour. Great guide. Great places to visit.

Mieko was such a wonderful guide! She took our interests into consideration and showed us a special Shinto temple and let us drink from the "long life" spring. She also explained how to do a Shinto prayer and took us for a walk where the gods lived. We had lunch at the perfect place--we wanted to eat good seafood--the seafood was fresh and the service fast and friendly. The fresh grilled scallops were the best I've tasted. Also, we got to try horse sashimi which is a specialty of Fukuoka I think. It was very good. We also toured Kumamoto Castle and the surrounding areas. We ended the tour at a restaurant that served the Kumamoto Wagyu special beef--from black cows! I'd highly recommend having Mieko guide you!

Mieko was a blessing to have on our visit to Kumamoto! She was very flexible and allowed us to customize the tour to our interests. Once we settled on an agenda for the day, our party of 6 embarked on a wonderful, adventurous, fun filled day! We started off by visiting Foodpal Kumamoto, an out of the city venue that we had discovered through researching things to do in Kumamoto. Although the venue was partially closed, we were able visit several specialty shops and met the gracious owner of Hashimoto Shoyu! Mrs. Hashimoto even went out of the way to escort us from her shoyu factory to main market place, giving us a tour of the area and sharing the history of her 5 generation family business. What a treat to have met her and experience such hospitality from her! Our next stop was lunch at a grilling izakaya that Mieko found within walking distance of Kumamoto Castle. This was a special request that we put on her and she came through with flying colors! We loved grilling experiences on recent trips to Niigata and Hachinohe. For lunch we feasted on the freshest seafood harvested from Kumamoto's waters, abalone, oysters, scallops, hokkigai clams, snow crab and jumbo tiger prawns! To top it off, Mieko suggested we try a taste of the special Kumamoto horsemeat sashimi and ordered us a platter to sample, which we tried with apprehension and found it to be a little chewy but nicely flavored, dipped in shoyu with green onion and grated ginger topping. After lunch we headed to Kumamoto Castle to walk off the feast. All I can say is that Mieko is an expert at navigating the Castle through heavy tourist traffic and providing expert commentary and historical information on the Lords and families that occupied the castle during the edo period. Especially drawing my attention was her familiarity and talking points on Miyamoto Musashi, Lord Hosokawa, Lady Gracia, Saigo Takamori and the other Daimyo lords under the shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu! After sweeping through the Castle, we had enough time to visit the Sakuranobaba, shopping area right outside the castle. There we were able to do some sake tasting at a liquor shop and browse through the shopping area before heading back to our hotel. Mieko gave us a full day of fun and adventure that we would not have been able to experience on our own! We have made a lifelong friend and will be sure to refer our friends and family to Mieko when they visit Kumamoto!