Note: I wrote this blog post over the course of the second half of 2024 from June all the way to November where it amassed 155 pages in a Google document. This blog is being released in 8 different parts where each read has lots of content but is digestible without reader burnout: Pre-trip, May 17-19, May 20-21, May 22-23, May 24-25, May 26-27, May 28-29, May 30-31

Here is the link to view the all parts (released/unreleased)

May 26 Sunday

Sunday was the final day of the “official retreat”. This morning I opted to go to breakfast at the garden restaurant in the hotel versus the rooftop. After breakfast Maaike, Hiroko, Kelly and I got to explore the grounds of the hotel – it has a well-maintained garden that’s worth visiting even if you aren’t staying at the hotel. We did have to be mindful of time in order to make it to the Ito International Research Center for the seminar located on the Tokyo University campus.

After arriving at the University we sat through some more KonMari-specific topics that I won’t discuss here along with workshops from Melissa about how to run a KonMari Business that Enhances Kurasu. Melissa is such a great presenter as she can make dry topics exciting to want to learn and lays out every subject so it's easy to follow and apply to your own business. Lunch for this session was at the University Chuo Dining Hall which I can attest that is way better than most American university food. After lunch we took headshots and group photos which you may end up seeing pop up here or there on my website or other formats. When lunch was over, we all had to say goodbye to Maaike who’s flight was later that day. This was one of the saddest moments of the trip for me as it was the first goodbye of many (besides Aki). In the afternoon Helen would present on speaking opportunities. This is a subject that I had never really considered or wanted to do as part of my business but after hearing her talk and performing exercises, I would be open to it now for the right situation. The remainder of the afternoon I’m going to also not write about but if you were there you know exactly what we all got to experience together. At the end of the day both Marie provided a parting speech along with Tiffany who did a phenomenal job putting together this trip!

Dinner that night was on a Yakatabune boat in Tokyo Bay with a multi course Tempura dinner along with many other fixings and lots of Sake.

One of the most memorable moments of the trip was the latin dance party on the roof deck of the boat that Jenna led. It was fun to see everyone get loose for one final time and enjoy each other's company before everyone dispersed the next day.

It happened to be Kristin’s birthday also so we got to sing her Happy Birthday on the boat and I decided to continue the celebration with her at the hotel Bar Capri later that evening along with a few others!!

What a great way to end the retreat on a high note! My journey wasn’t over just yet though with another 5 days to explore Tokyo. I might have missed many names and interactions in this brief overview of the week but below, I want to just write a quick note about each individual person on the main portion of our trip. You’ll find this at the very end of the blog

May 27 Monday

Monday was the first day after the retreat and the first time I was able to sleep in all week, and by sleeping I mean waking up around 8 am vs 6 am. One of the trip goers Jenna was also spending extra time in Tokyo too, so we took time to coordinate and both were staying in Shinjuku. Before checking out of the hotel, we had our final breakfast at the Hotel New Otani Tower Restaurant. I was really going to miss the view from the top floor and left a lasting memory of the hotel. After checking out we met up with another Consultant (and now friend) Emi who was staying with family in town. Together we all navigated the train system with all of our luggage all the way to Shinjuku. I’m going to have to say that traveling with luggage on the train system is not the most convenient thing as there are not always elevators at every station and some require hand-carrying luggage up and down stairs such as this instance. In the future, I would plan on using luggage delivery service if switching hotels. The hotel I moved to was called Hotel Gracery right in the dead smack center of Shinjuku and is where the large Godzilla head is. Here are my first sights of Shinjuku after getting off the train. At nighttime all the lights come on and the area becomes vibrant.

Jenna and I had decided to check out multiple tourist spots this day since the majority of our time in Tokyo had been spent at the seminar. The first stop was to visit Asakusa. Asakusa is known as “old Tokyo” where it has a non-modern and non-commercialized “visual look” to it, however the place has totally been commercialized for tourism already. The main attraction of this area is Senso-Ji Temple. Although this temple was very well laid out, it was overrun by tourism and made it difficult to enjoy since we didn’t have the behind the scenes or personal guide experience for the first time on the trip.

The street leading up to temple Nakamise-dori Street Shops also was full of many shops lined up back to back with food stalls and mementos. I wasn’t really in the shopping mood this day so we both quickly walked through.

By this time it was already mid-afternoon and Jenna and I were starving. Since we had been eating extravagant meals the entire past week, there was never an opportunity to get something simple such as a bowl of ramen and luckily a few blocks away was a Ramen spot Gyumon Halal Ramen Asakusa that specialized in Wagyu ramen. You know I needed to take advantage of that! The Wagyu fat melted straight into the broth of the soup and made this the best ramen dish i’ve ever consumed in my life.

After a satisfying lunch the next place on our list to scope out on the way back to Shinjuku was Akihabara known for anime and electronics.

(Note, it’s Sept 1 now and the last time I worked on this was July 21 as I continue)

Akihabara really is its own neighborhood with lots of niche stores, arcades, etc. We actually went into a few of the stores that had a ton of toys and models but after a while they all started to blend into the same thing. Here is the only photo I got from that neighborhood.

Both Jenna and I were super wiped out after the full day of exploring so we went back to our respective hotels in Shinjuku and took a nice rest before exploring the area that evening.

The first stop of the evening was the local beer house across from the Hotel Gracery called Shinjuku Ale. The beers were not bad at all! Would definitely recommend this tiny spot for a pit stop but not a place to spend an entire evening.

Intuitive wandering of the area happened after this where I ran into an exotic coffee cart Samoyed Coffee Freaks. If you know me, you know I love good coffee and this place did not disappoint. They had so many varieties of Geisha coffee that my mind was literally blown. I tried a sample of a Panama Lamastus Reactor Fermented that had flavor notes of Sakura, Shiso, Dark Cherry, Soldum, and Blueberry. I also got to share my love of coffee with other visitors hanging out at the stand too!

Continued wandering led us inadvertently to Golden Gai which are mini alleys of TINY bars. Each bar seats maybe 6 people at most and all have different themes. I highly recommend visiting this area and getting lost in the mix. Lots of bars are at capacity when you walk by so its luck of the draw of which one you may end up at. We did a few laps before discovering the right bar with the right vibe for the night.

After a few drinks we were truly done for the night and it was time for some rest.

Here is the link to view the all parts (released/unreleased)

May 20 Monday

This day turned out to be one of the most fun adventure days of the trip before all of the scheduled activities with the main KonMari group. My stay at the Doubletree was ending so it was time to check out and drop my bags off at the Nohga Hotel Kyomizu Kyoto. As I had previously mentioned, I planned accordingly so swapping hotels was a 5 minute walk at most. After dropping my bags off, one of my oldest organizer friends Melissa was arriving in a few hours so there was some time to kill before roaming to Nishiki Market. Since Bree and I got along so well the previous day, she would join the adventure crew this day also. What I ended up doing was cross referencing the group itinerary and would hit anything major that we would not see as a group. This marketplace and other “shopping” ended up being the main items to see this day along with stuffing our stomachs with as much food and beverage as possible.

Of course the morning could have not started without a dose of caffeine. Being the coffee enthusiast I am, I needed to find the best roaster in Kyoto - SOT Coffee Roaster Kyoto. Fortunately for us this was only a 10 minute walk from the hotel. I selected a Ethiopia Tobutu Tuta G1 Experimental bean with Strawberry and Plum notes in the pourover serving method. This coffee was rated 95 by CoffeeReview which meant expectations were high. After the first sip, I was onboard.

Coffee Roaster Kyoto — SOT coffee roasters

One of the many enlightening conversations that Bree and I shared was about coffee roasting, quality, and brewing. I was able to make recommendations to help elevate her setup from a Nespresso machine in order to get quality on-par with this coffee shop everyday with minimal effort.

After arriving back at the hotel, guess what! Melissa had made it there. This was a landmark time since Melissa and I had been friends for about 5 years but we had never met in person. Plenty of video, phone, texts, but just not face-to-face. It’s hard to beat the real thing, especially in this case. Our backgrounds and the way we conduct our businesses are VERY different but we have the best mutual understanding and respect for each other.

Melissa, Bree, and I were ready to start our adventure towards the market! To preface how this day and many other future days of this trip went, my general strategy for travel is to have a general idea of where you want to end up but trust your intuition of where the adventure may take you. This strategy never let anyone down this entire trip.

The first “detour” to the market would be to stop at the Nintendo Kyoto store located on the top floor of a mall. To be honest the store wasn’t that impressive and had a lot of characters that I didn’t know. The best part of the adventure was getting a photo in front of a large Mario and the journey through the mall getting to see a Japanese toy store since Melissa was on the hunt for Legos. The Japanese toy store had infinite amounts of anime models and toys, but no legos.

After the Nintendo store, we were still headed towards the market, but intuition took us down a random side alley where the first thing we saw was a Micro Pig cafe that almost put us on another detour. After some deliberation and looking at the reservation, we decided to continue on and if we really wanted to do it we could come back later.

About 200 feet later the first actual stop was a mochi donut shop called Koe Donuts. We were hungry anyways after walking for maybe 45 minutes so it was time for the first of many pit stops.

After the Donut shop we finally made it to Nishiki market! This marketplace was a never ending long street of various food vendors. Some vendors sold on the main walkway and some you had to go inside to get service. The first thing that Bree and I wanted were Kobe Beef/Wagyu Sticks that we found near the area we entered at. They were delicious!

Wagyu Nishiki Kyoto — Scarfing down the Wagyu sticks

The next item acquired on this market journey was a custard filled Taiyaki

Taiyaki in Nishiki Market Kyoto — Taiyaki

As we continued to walk our impulsive stop was for draft beer where we got to go upstairs in the eatery to enjoy our beers in a quiet setting after roaming the busy marketplace. Sorry no pictures of this…too busy consuming.

As we had a slight buzz at this point as we were strolling through the market, it was time for some caffeine again. We saw this couple taking a silly looking video for social media on this staircase leading up to a cafe. Jokingly, I reenacted the video for fun but it actually led us into the cafe called 2D Tearoom Baw. The design of the inside was painted like a 2D room and I had a croffle (croissant waffle) and tea that was to die for.

As we continued….There was a place that was serving 100 yen sake out front. Why not, it became sake time. We all did a shot of sake out front and then strolled through the place where we got fried chicken and sushi too. This was probably the best detour of the day and became the birth of team Sake Bomb.

After multiple hours of roaming through the market that started to look the same after hundreds of stores we made it to the end. I can definitely say I was pretty wiped at this point and was ready to start roaming back to the hotel…however the Gion District Hanamikoji Street was along the way back. We did not have any group activities planned here besides a dinner. Hanamikoji street looked like it could have been a different century. Everything was “old” but “new” and well taken care of. For some reason there were also many signs saying “no photos” allowed which I later on learned it was meant for the side alley streets and this was also where many of the Geisha performing artists worked. I had read many articles such as this one stating that tourists were banned in this area on certain side streets for harassing the performers but all I ended up seeing were the no photo signs…I have no photos of this street because I didn’t want to do anything risky or violate any regulations. Along the way back to the hotel, there was another garden/temple that was encountered called Kenninji Temple.

A side note from the journey back to the hotel was I was leading the group down a bunch of side streets to get back to the hotel. I want to say everyone was pretty skeptical about where we were going, however we popped out a side alley that was literally right next to the hotel. I can say that this was the exact moment trust was fully earned in me leading groups in foreign countries.

After some R&R team Sake Bomb ventured to an Yakitori restaurant called Torisei. This palace was so charming and sat less than 15 people total where the cooks made everything right in front of you. I ordered one of the set meal dishes and ended up being delicious.

Toriesi Kyoto Yakitori — Torisei Yakitori

The night was not over as Melissa and I continued on to get some adult beverages at a bar called Sake&Beer BAR WindMill. This bar was soooo interesting as they had American classic rock music playing and TV screens of concert videos. There was also a large classic rock CD collection where you could request to play albums or songs. We tried a multi-flight taster of cold Sake where the bartender hand-selected what we got to try. They all ended up being delicious and this was the moment I became a real fan of cold sake rather than the cheap/hot stuff in America that’s used for Sake bombs.

This was the final stop of the night as it was time to stumble home and get ready for the first official day of the KonMari retreat on Tuesday.

May 21 Tuesday

I started this morning with breakfast at the hotel and it was the first time I had actually eaten breakfast on this trip so far. The breakfast selection was a variety of pastries and breads that were baked in=house along with British-style egg dishes. I recall having breakfast with Meera from the Los Angeles area. She was part of the previous bamboo forest day adventure but getting to chat with her was super awesome this particular time as she was newly certified and had so much drive and determination to hop right into her business.

Around 9 am we met with the group and got introduced to our tour guide for the week, Aki! I would later on come to realize how good of a guide Aki was as she had a wealth of knowledge about every single place we would visit and her command of the English language made my experience as streamlined as it could be. Nothing ever got lost in translation with her the entire trip and saying goodbye to her at the end of the week was the start of some of the hardest goodbyes.

After breakfast, we hopped on the bus to visit the Golden Temple called Kinkaku-ji. The temple had 3 different levels representing various architectural periods. The first floor was Shiden style with lots of wood pillars and white plaster walls - no gold on this level. The second level was Buke style which was what samurais lived in and covered in gold leaf. The third level has a Chinese Zen Hall style with a golden phoenix on top.

Some quick notes was this place was tourist crazy! You couldn’t walk anywhere to have a peaceful moment to take everything in. The temple is around a beautiful pond/garden area that is blocked off. Off to the side of the temple was a Ship-shaped pine tree along with the Abbot’s Quarters. On the path out of the temple, we were able to participate in incense and candle lighting - I really enjoyed this experience!

Golden Temple Incense — Incense lighting at Golden Temple

After the craziness of the temple, the next stop on the bus ride was a special lunch and garden viewing at Sennyu-ji Shariden Temple. In terms of crowds you could say this place was the exact opposite of the Golden Temple. There were barely any tourists at this place. We were the “special guests” of the day and were greeted by the staff where we would encounter the White Monk from Florida (Kenmei Foxworth). This temple traditionally hosts many famous people and foreign dignitaries and we got the same experience as many of them. We went into an area of the temple where tables were lined up for lunch. This was one of the most impactful lunches of my life as Kenmei mentioned to us as we consumed this traditional buddhist lunch to be mindful about the environment around us and food we were eating. We all ate in silence versus talking with each other and this is something I have incorporated into some of my current meals where I would have the TV or music on in the background.

Buddhist Temple Lunch — Sennyu-ji Shariden Temple Buddhist Lunch

After the lunch, Kenmei answered some questions about how he ended up becoming a monk and ended up at this school which you can watch his Ted Talk here. My biggest takeaway was learning about Esoteric Buddhism and how everything we do is interconnected to the community around us and to find purpose in our lives. We got to then tour the garden at the temple and have more mindful moments about what we were experiencing, seeing, hearing. This was also where I got my first fascination with stones and rock pebble patterns.

Kyoto Rock Garden — Sennyu-ji Shariden Rock Garden

The next stop on the journey was Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine. This is the head Inari shrine and is the Shinto shrine with all the orange torii gates that line up in a row. The entrance was an uphill walk where we passed through multiple large torii gates where Aki said we needed to go on the sides and not the center and also bow each time we passed through. This place was BUSYYYYYYYYY. We got a quick history and then got to roam through the grounds on our own for about 30 minutes. Although this is one of the biggest tourist spots that people visit in Kyoto, this was a more of check the box spot as it was just hard to take it all in with how busy it was along with the limited amount of time we had here.

One of the highlights after the shrine was stopping by an ice cream shop along the shops back to the tour bus and was a much desired treat for everyone since it was HOT that day. Kaulani and I were one of the last people to get our ice creams! Since this is your first time meeting Kaulani, he is from Hawaii and is one of the funniest people that I encountered on the trip and also one of the few males in this space. At any given point there are only 5 or 6 males at a time that are certified over over 500+. If you look at my shirt you can tell I've been sweating for hours too in the photo.

Kyoto Ice Cream — Kaulani and Michael getting Ice Cream

The day was not over yet as our next stop was visiting Komyo-in Temple for some private activities that Takumi (Marie’s husband) had arranged for us to participate in. When I think back on my trip, this temple was one the top experiences for me. We divided up in groups and my first activity was a traditional japanese tea ceremony in a tatami floor room. We got to meet Yoshi who would prepare the matcha for each of us individually and we all sat on the floor and got to enjoy each other's company (mainly in silence) during the process.

The second activity that we would participate in was a Zazen meditation session led by the head monk of the temple. We all sat on the floor and focused on our breath and let emotions, thoughts, and sensations arise as we overlooked a beautiful zen garden. After a day of non-stop “go” my mind was able to slow down and the silence let me be mindful about my own life and many thoughts/events that led up to this moment of me being here at this very moment. Sorry no photos from this meditation as I was in the ZONE. We also got to meet the head gardener Makoto Kitazawa who has designed some famous gardens all over the world and he walked us through his thoughts and inspirations for when he creates a garden. This was one of the top gardens that I got to witness below.

Komyo-In Rock Garden — Zen Rock Garden @ Komyo-in Temple

Our final activity of the evening was dinner at Gion Kyoryori Hanasaki in the Gion district that we had visited the day prior. This was the first official dinner of the retreat and there were so many courses from this traditional japanese meal. The team really knocked it out of the park with this. This meal also had entertainment from a Geisha singer!

After dinner was where we discovered the Ren from Malaysia was the SELFIE MASTER which would hold true the entire rest of the trip. She is one of the most kind and warm souls that I have met.

Kyoto Groupie — Ren is the SELFIE group photo master!

The night was not over without a nightcap though. Our hotel had a rooftop bar CICON Rooftop Bar where some of us got some delicious Japanese Whisky!

May 26 Sunday

May 27 Monday

May 20 Monday

May 21 Tuesday

Fulfilling Your Future

Contact

As Featured In…