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Celebrate cherry blossom season with a wine-and-dine bus tour of Tokyo’s best spots

Dale Roll Feb 17, 2024
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Why settle for picnicking in one spot when you can dine while cruising around all of them?

If you’re stuck between choosing whether to celebrate cherry blossom season with a tour of Tokyo’s best cherry blossom spots or a gourmet picnic in a park, wonder no further, because Japanese bus company Willer Travel is once again offering their Tokyo Restaurant Bus for the cherry blossom season, which brings the best of both options!

The Tokyo Restaurant Bus is a tour bus that lets people enjoy the sights of Tokyo together while enjoying authentic course meals and drinks. On this double-decker bus with a kitchen on the bottom and open-air seats on top, passengers look out at Tokyo from a height of three meters (9.8 feet), offering a view of the city like no other.

The cherry blossom season course is called “Kokoro wo Zeitaku na, Sakura Hanami Course” (“Extravagant Spirit Cherry Blossom Viewing Course”), and it’s back for the third year in a row due to popular demand. Regardless of whether you choose a lunch course or a dinner course, the route will run by some of Tokyo’s top cherry blossom viewing spots, including Chidorigafuchi Moat, the scenic moat around Tokyo’s Imperial Castle, and Tokyo Midtown, a park in central Tokyo. It’ll also hit other major landmarks in the city like Tokyo Tower, Rainbow Bridge, and the high-end shopping area of Ginza.

▼ Tokyo Midtown

As the bus cruises along, an experienced guide will supply anecdotes and facts about the city, and passengers will be allowed a 30-minute break in the middle to stretch their legs in Odaiba. The entire tour is about three hours long, depending on traffic.

▼ Chidorigafuchi Moat

The food has also been carefully planned. You’ll have the option to choose a multi-course meal containing either French or Japanese dishes.

▼ A sampling of the French course

The French course includes dishes like prosciutto rolls, sakura shrimp soup, and a quinoa cheese risotto, while the Japanese course comes with seasonal fare like a garden eel and soy pulp terrine and chirashi-zushi (raw seafood over rice). And of course, both courses come with dessert! All will be served with wine or sake as you tour Tokyo’s best sightseeing spots inside the comfort of a super tall, open-roof bus.

▼ A sampling of the Japanese course

Both lunch and dinner cost the same price of 16,800 yen (US$111.40) per person (16,500 yen for children), with a minimum two-person booking. Tours will be available on March 20, 22 to 24, 28 to 31, and April 4 to 7. They’re exclusive to the spring season and will no doubt be popular, so you may want to book early to make sure you secure your seat. Reservations are now open on Willer Travel’s official site, which also has an English version, thanks to the tour’s recent popularity among international tourists.

Source, images: PR Times
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