Our team at Inside Japan Tours

The sun never sets on the InsideJapan Tours team (well, maybe on Sundays) as we have offices in Bristol (UK), Broomfield, (USA), Brisbane (Australia) and Nagoya (Japan). On this page you can meet the people behind our Japan tours and holidays.

We have a wide range of backgrounds and interests, but you can be sure that the one thing that ties us all together is a love of Japan, Japanese culture and a passionate desire to share that with other people.

From the accounts department, through the travel consultant teams to the tour leaders and guides on the ground, you can rest assured that everything we do is to make sure you have the best possible experience of Japan.

Richard Farmer
Insider
Email: [email protected]
Location (Japan)

After several months as a travel consultant in our Bristol office, Richard found that the pull of Japan was too strong and has now returned to the land of the rising sun as an InsideJapan tour leader!

Richard's interest in Japan began with a passion for Zen Buddhism - especially in relation to history, art and architecture. It was this interest that led him to study Asian religion at SOAS in London, during which time he visited Japan for the first time in the summer holiday of his second year.

For six weeks Richard backpacked solo across Japan, staying in youth hostels, struggling to make himself understood in Japanese, getting into numerous interesting situations and generally having a fantastic time. Japan was everything that Richard had hoped it would be and more - he found the places so interesting and the people so friendly that when he got the opportunity to move there after graduating from university, it was an easy decision to make.

Richard spent five years teaching English in Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture and had free reign to feed his Zen addiction by visiting temples across the country, attending Buddhist art exhibitions, and staying at Daijo-ji - a training temple in Kanazawa. Over his five years, Richard spent a cumulative total of about two months at this temple, where he sometimes practiced zazen meditation for up to eight hours a day!

After his time in Kanazawa, Richard spent six years living in Kyoto, before hopping the prefectural border to Osaka where he currently lives, with the Buddhist hot spots of Kyoto and Nara still on his doorstep!

In his time, Richard has also worked as a chef at an okonomiyaki restaurant in London (okonomiyaki is his favourite Japanese food and happens to be one of the most famous dishes in his current home of Osaka), and also enjoys occasional holidays to France where he loves to gorge on wine and cheese.

Where is your favourite place in Japan, and why would you recommend it?

"Don't tell anyone in Kanazawa, but it has to be Kyoto! Of course Kanazawa is great, but for the sheer number of beautiful shrines and temples, Kyoto is the winner. I think it would be possible to spend weeks there (in fact, I have over the years) and still not see it all.

"As a Zen buff, my favourite spots are all from that sect. I particularly like Ryoan-ji, Tofuku-ji, Kennin-ji and Kodai-ji - which are all Zen temples. Not that it's all about Zen; Fushimi Inari Taisha (a Shinto shrine) is one of my favourite spots - particularly at dusk in the summer when the cicadas are chirping (though you'll need to pile on the mosquito repellant).

"Just outside of Kyoto I also love Uji, not just for the famous Byodo-in Temple but also for the lesser-known Mampuku-ji, head temple of the Obaku school of Zen (Zen's smallest school). It's a great place to visit, and a lot less crowded than many of the sights in Kyoto!"

Relive a favourite moment in Japan...

Basketball tournaments in Niigata

"While in Japan, I really loved taking part in a series of basketball tournaments organized by one of the JET programme coordinators in the tiny town of Tokamachi in Niigata. There were two tournaments per year - one in spring and one in autumn - and was open to anyone to join. This meant that there was a great mix of foreign English teachers and their Japanese friends, which made it a fantastic international experience and a great way to meet new people.

"Teams came from all over the country and after the tournament everyone would go to an onsen (with fantastic mountain views!) together to soothe their muscles before staying at a local minshuku where we had a (usually pretty raucous) drinks party. It was great going back every half year and catching up with all the people who kept coming back for more."