Why I Became a Private Food Tour Guide in Tokyo
Chapter 6: Living Two Lives
More Than a Side Hustle
When I started guiding food tours, it was just a weekend side hustle. But the UK-based company assigned me more and more tours, and I quickly realized just how much demand there was for food experiences in tourism.
Most of my guests were couples—honeymooners, people celebrating anniversaries, even a few planning to propose during their trip to Japan. They were here for memories, not just meals.
Escaping the Office After Dark
Meanwhile, I was stuck in a joyless accounting job with no hope of promotion, no raise in sight, and not even a girlfriend to text goodnight. By day, I dragged myself through spreadsheets and tax documents. But by evening, I’d slip out of the office as if I were escaping a prison and head to Ebisu or Shibuya to meet my tour guests.
Honestly, while the food tours were fun, I often felt a deep pang of envy. I admired my guests’ joy, their connection, their sense of purpose. I, on the other hand, was just trying to figure out how to survive in Tokyo with nothing but my English skills to rely on.
But every time they smiled and said, “We’re so glad you came with us,” it reminded me that I was more than my day job. For the first time in years, I felt needed. And that feeling… it was addictive.
What My Guests Really Wanted
As I guided more and more food tours, something clicked. My guests didn’t just want information. They wanted intimacy. They wanted a guide who could listen, adjust to their pace, and shape the day around their dreams—especially couples marking milestones like honeymoons or proposals.
So I became that guide. I did everything I could to honor their wishes: tracking down special dishes, timing the perfect sunset spots, creating moments they would never forget.
Reviews as My New Currency
And then the reviews started pouring in. One by one, kind words and 5-star ratings became my new currency. For the first time, I wasn’t just working. I was contributing. Creating joy. Delivering something worth remembering.
That was the moment I realized: I no longer needed a desk to belong somewhere. I had found my place—right there, walking the streets of Tokyo with people from around the world.
Chapter 7: The Art of Listening
Guiding Isn’t Talking
As I continued guiding travelers from around the world, I learned something no textbook could ever teach me: the real key to creating a meaningful experience is learning to listen.
At first, I thought guiding meant talking—explaining culture, describing food, filling the silence. But the more couples, families, honeymooners, and solo travelers I met, the clearer it became. People don’t remember facts. They remember how deeply they were understood.
Learning to Read the Room
Little by little, I stopped rushing through my script and started paying attention—to their stories, their reasons for traveling, their anxieties, their excitement. And when I listened, everything changed.
I learned how to read the room. How to sense when someone was tired, overwhelmed, or curious. How to shift a tour to match my guests’ energy, not my own plan.
Making Someone Feel Seen
This wasn’t just customer service. It was a kind of human connection—the same kind that had first drawn me to Couchsurfing, to opening my home and sharing a table with strangers.
In time, I realized that communication isn’t about speaking clearly. It’s about making someone feel seen.
That skill, born from guiding thousands of guests across Tokyo, became another tool in my toolkit. Just as essential as English—and just as transformative.
Chapter 8: The Breaking Point
Five Years at a Small Accounting Firm
After leaving EY, I spent five more years working at a small accounting firm. Our clients weren’t listed companies or global conglomerates. They were local shops and small family-run businesses—most of them struggling just to stay afloat.
Some couldn’t pay their taxes. Some couldn’t even pay their staff. Eventually, many stopped paying us—their accountants. These weren’t rare cases. They were the norm.
Despite the long hours and mounting stress, the firm’s only strategy was to chase more clients and more volume—quantity over quality. There was no vision. No care. Just survival.
A Future I Didn’t Want to Grow Into
At the accounting firm, I saw what adulthood looked like up close—and it scared me. One colleague said he only made it home in time to see his child’s sleeping face. A manager used to mutter that he hadn’t had a real conversation with his wife in over a week.
No one seemed happy. No one had time. And for the life of me, I couldn’t see a single future I wanted to grow into.
Drained by Day, Filled by Night
Meanwhile, in the evenings and on weekends, I was guiding travelers through Tokyo’s food scene. My day job drained me. My side gig filled me.
While my weekday clients looked exhausted, the people I met on tours were radiant—honeymooners, food lovers, couples celebrating anniversaries or proposals. They were alive. Happy. And me? I was burned out, underpaid, and utterly invisible in the fluorescent glare of office life.
The Leap in 2019
By 2019, something in me had shifted. Tokyo was gearing up for the Olympics. Tourism was booming. The city was alive with possibility—and I could feel the wave rising beneath my feet.
I looked around at my job: unpaid overtime, clients who couldn’t pay us, a salary that hadn’t moved in years, and weekends spent in the office while my dreams waited outside.
I knew that if I didn’t make a move now, I’d still be stuck there at 40. Still burned out. Still single. Still wondering what could have been.
So I did what had felt unthinkable just months earlier: I handed in my resignation.
I didn’t have everything figured out. But I had energy, direction, and something even more powerful than a plan: hope. It was time to stop calculating for others and start building something of my own.
The Worst Possible Timing
I knew there were plenty of guests waiting for my tours. But what I didn’t know—what I couldn’t have known—was that I had just quit my job at the worst possible moment. That the next three years would become a kind of living hell. That 2020 would rewrite everything.