Shiki Japan
Bespoke Journeys · Est. 2009
Bespoke Japan, since 2009
A private journey through Tokyo, Kyoto, and the islands beyond — built one-on-one with a specialist who lives here, then supported by our Tokyo concierge every hour of your trip.
Design My Japan TripFounded in Shibuya, 2009
Shiki Japan began with a small bet. In 2009, Aiko Tanaka — then a concierge at the Park Hyatt Tokyo — and her husband Kenji Mori, a licensed guide, left the hotel to build the kind of Japan operator they wished had existed for their own guests.
They had watched too many travelers arrive with glossy itineraries that missed the country entirely. They wanted the opposite: trips shaped by people who wake up here, who know which ryokan still answers the phone in winter, who can secure a private tea ceremony at a temple that does not list on any website.
Sixteen years on, the practice is still in Shibuya. Aiko leads the design team. Kenji oversees the specialist network across Kyoto, Kanazawa, and Okinawa. The trips are still built one-on-one, never assembled from a template.
Aiko Tanaka & Kenji Mori, foundersWe do not sell Japan. We simply know it well enough to introduce you — to the innkeeper, the priest, the chef, the mountain — and then step back.
Three ways to begin
Every Shiki itinerary is private, but most begin with a quiet conversation about what kind of trip you want. Three of the most-asked.
Honeymoon & Anniversary
Fourteen nights across Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, and a private island inn — with a private tea ceremony, an after-hours temple visit in Kanazawa, and a chef's counter dinner that we have been holding a seat at for nine months.
Read a sample honeymoon arc →Culinary & Sake
From a third-generation soba maker in Nagano to a kaiseki counter with two Michelin stars and a sake brewery opened only for our clients. Designed with our resident culinary specialist, Mei Sasaki.
See the culinary route →Returning, for the second or third time
Naoshima's art islands, a stay with a monk family on Koyasan, the snow country onsens of Niigata, the pottery towns of Bizen and Mashiko. Built for travelers who fell in love in 2014 and want to go deeper.
Explore returning journeys →A real Shiki journey — anonymized
For a couple celebrating a tenth anniversary. The arc below is one of fifty we might have drawn for them — yours would begin the same way: a long first call, then this.
Chapter I
Settled into a suite at Aman Tokyo before the city wakes. Days opened with the concierge at our office in Shibuya — Tsukiji's outer market at six, the National Museum's Hyokeikan after hours, a private box at a sumo morning practice in Ryogoku. No fixed schedule; the design is in the pauses between.
Chapter II
The bullet train south, then a private car winding into the cedar hills. A kaiseki dinner built around the autumn matsutake. The next morning, a priest from a Tendai temple arrives at the inn for a private meditation and sutra-copying session — arranged by our Hakone specialist.
Chapter III
A restored machiya near Kodai-ji. Days walked, not driven: Nishiki market before opening, a private tea room in Uji with a fifteenth-generation master, an after-hours visit to Ryoan-ji's rock garden with a scholar who has studied it for forty years. One evening is left deliberately blank — for whatever the city offers.
Chapter IV
The Seto Inland Sea crossing at dawn. The Chichu and Lee Ufan museums after the day-trippers have gone home. A dinner cooked by a chef who trained under Yoshihiro Murata, served in a room that looks out to the water. The final morning: a slow walk along the coast, alone, before the ferry home.
Designed by name, in Tokyo
Every Shiki journey is designed one-on-one by a named specialist who lives in Tokyo and has, on average, eleven years of experience. The average response time to your first message is 3.4 hours. Below: three of the designers who might draw your trip.
Eleven years at Shiki. Trained at a kaiseki counter in Gion before joining in 2013. Holds the reservation list at eight restaurants that will never appear online.
Former museum curator in Kanazawa. Designs the temple and craft-forward itineraries, and maintains our relationships with 180+ partner ryokans.
Born in Milan, based in Tokyo since 2011. Speaks fluent Japanese and Italian. Has designed 240+ honeymoon and milestone trips.
Recognition