This Week in Tokyo and Mount Fuji – 25 February 2020

Welcome to ‘This Week in Tokyo’ (and Mount Fuji), a review of the Maction Planet week that was and a look ahead to what’s coming up in the city. Hosted by Mac, our Founder and Lead Guide, you can check out photos from our tours and read insights into our explorations as we get under the skin of the World’s Greatest Metropolis, and beyond! This week: Chilling at Chureito; Tokyo Karadise; Karen and Tom under Kawazu-zakura; Pink and White Plum Blossoms with Katrin and Andy; DW on the decks and ‘All the 20s – Pechakucha’.  

Header image – Maction Planet Third Anniversary Kumade: On 20 February we celebrated the third anniversary of the launch of our website.It has been a truly incredible journey. We published a press release and shared it all over our social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn). We got a lot of questions about the picture that we used as the header image for that post. Well, its a kumade. We have used our Maction Planet kumade as the header images for our posts celebrating our first and second anniversaries. You can find out more about what a kumade is, and this specific kumade, by reading the 26 November 2019 edition of ‘This Week in Tokyo’ and watching our video of how we purchased our year three kumade at the 2019 Tori no Ichi. Once again, I cannot express my gratitude enough to our tour guests, apparel customers, blog readers, vlog watchers, radio show listeners and collaborators around the world. We continue…

Featured image – Chilling at Chureito: It was a privilege to guide Juergen and family on Sunday to the Fuji Five lakes area. The Chureito Pagoda (忠霊塔) The five-story pagoda is part of the Arakura Sengen Shrine and was built as a peace memorial in 1963 nearly 400 steps up the mountain from the shrine’s main buildings. It overlooks Fujiyoshida City and with a spectacular view of Mount Fuji. Why say more when this picture speaks a thousand words about our time together!

Tokyo Karadise: It was an honour to tour with Kara and John in Tokyo on Friday 21 February, ending up in a session of 4pm Karaoke! Check our Kara’s blog, Karadise, for some really great travel advice and fashion tips!

Karen and Tom under Kawazu-zakura: On Saturday 22 February I guided Karen and Tom on a full-day Tokyo Tour. Karen loved all the blooms so we had to grab a snap under the early blooming Kawazu-zakura. Speaking of Sakura… tickets are on sale for the Maction Planet x Shochu.Pro Hanami to be held on Sunday 29 March 2020 in Yoyogi Park. Join us! Grab yours here: mpxsphanami2020.peatix.com.

Pink and White Plum Blossoms with Katrin and Andy: On Tuesday 18 February I guided Katrin and Andy on a full day Tokyo tour. Over from Germany, they split their time 50:50 between Tokyo Tokyoland and Tokyo Disneyland! To document our time together we had to snap a shot under this lovely combination of Pink and White Plum Blossoms.

DW on the decks: Long-time readers of the Maction Planet blog will recognise the gentleman above as the one-and-only David Watkins, a former ‘Mac on Tokyo’ interviewee. David wears a number of hats, and I’m not just referring to the insane number of Tokyo Yakult Swallows caps he owns – a collection which rivals mine! Under the enigmatic and indecipherable moniker ‘DW’, David DJs! He has recently begun spinning at Bar Stereo in Takadanobaba. On Saturday 22 February he supported headliner Shuya Okino of Kyoto Jazz Massive fame. Both DW and Shuya played fantastic sets and the atmosphere was electric. DW will be playing this coming Saturday, 29 February, once again at Bar Stereo. He has also promised Maction Planet Radio a ‘Tokyo ON in the Mix’ special set! Stay tuned, and we continue…

And finally – ‘All the 20s – Pechakucha’:  PechaKucha (Japanese for “chit chat”) is the world’s fastest-growing storytelling platform and is used by millions around the globe. The format is ultra-simple: 20 slides. 20 seconds of commentary per slide. That leads to powerful, visually-compelling stories that move audiences in 6.66 minutes. At PechaKucha Nights people share hilarious, heartwarming, tear-jerking PechaKucha presentations around the world. The origins of Pechakucha are not shrouded in mystery (!); in 2003 architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Tokyo’s Klein Dytham architecture invented PechaKucha with an initial goal of streamling long design presentations. Today, more than 50,000 people present at 1,100+ global PechaKucha Nights every year. Thursday, 20 February 2020 was the inaugural INTERNATIONAL PECHAKUCHA DAY and a special edition of PechaKucha Night Tokyo, Vol. 169 was held at The CORE Kitchen/Space. An diverse line-up of international presenters shared their creative passions. The event started at 20:20:20 on 20/02/2020 and of course I couldn’t resist snapping a photo at the numerically-significant time. Hashtag nailed it!

Maction Planet runs bespoke Private Tours and Experiences in Tokyo, and beyond. To book yours, contact us at info@mactionplanet.com

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