Tokyo-based Unagi (Eel) Travel has a range of offers to suit every cuddly companion’s purse. For instance, a day trip around sightseeing spots in the Japanese capital is US$45, plus travel — by parcel post — from and to the toy’s home address.
The more adventurous bear might like to see some of the grand temples and shrines of the ancient capital of Kyoto for US$95, or unwind in the hot spring baths that dot volcanic Japan — a snip at US$55.
“Some clients join tours simply because it seems fun but there are also people who want to send stuffed animals as their proxies since they can’t travel by themselves, because they are in hospital, handicapped or too busy,” tour operator Sonoe Azuma told AFP.
Photo: AFP
“A client asked me to take her companion up some stairs and walk through narrow streets she can’t go into with her wheelchair.”
Another client wanted her animal to get a lot of sunshine as she can’t go outside because of a skin disease.
A form sent to teddy owners ahead of the trip asks for the tourist’s name, if they are prone to car-sickness or sea-sickness, and if they are allergic to a particular food.
Owners are invited to give a bit of background about the participant’s character, such as what their hobbies are and why they are joining the tour.
On a recent tour of Tokyo, to which an AFP team was invited, a menagerie of creatures were entrusted to Azuma’s care.
The group included a tiger from Osaka, a shark from Kanagawa, a rather well-loved Hello Kitty from Hyogo and a small version of Sesame Street’s Big Bird from Hokkaido. They were escorted around Tokyo by the agency’s resident tour guide, eel girl Unasha.
After an early morning briefing on what to expect, participants were gently packed up and taken to the expansive Meiji Jingu Shrine before heading for the Imperial Palace gardens, where Azuma carefully spread out a towel for the gang to sit on as they posed for one of many group photos of the day.
SERIOUS TASK
While it may sound a little far-fetched, 39-year-old Azuma, who used to work in finance, takes her task very seriously and objects to the idea that she is just firing off snaps at famous locations.
“Anyone could do it if it was simply about taking pictures of stuffed animals... You must do this with the belief that I’m taking care of other people’s children,” she said.
Azuma, who has been running Unagi Travel for three years, live-blogs her tours, uploading pictures on Facebook and Twitter (www.facebook.com/unagitravel, twitter.com/unagitravel).
Each photo is captioned with comments from tour participants, ranging from the simple “yummy!” when sampling food to a more considered “Always important to look at things from a different perspective” as they stand in front of a tall building.
Azuma even prepares tiny costumes for her pint-sized charges that match tour locations — such as kimonos for a sleepover at a Japanese-style inn. She says this helps to add a little surprise to owners who are monitoring the trip online.
And she uses the photos she takes to map out a story that chimes with the background each owner has provided.
On one tour, a Tokyoite bunny carried a frog from a provincial town on her back through the din of the capital city because the frog was not used to crowded places.
And her human clients seem to appreciate the personal attention. One woman said she had never seen her rabbit looking so happy as in a photo of it eating at a restaurant with other stuffed toys, Azuma said.
A satisfied customer in her 40s told AFP she did not think it was strange at all to send two cuddly companions on a mystery tour.
“I enjoyed the scenery or the food through their eyes, even if I was not physically there,” said the woman, who did not want to be named.
With digital photography, mocking up a picture of your bear at a tourist spot would be easy, concedes the woman, but that rather misses the point.
“I think it is very different when they go there physically by themselves and take pictures,” she said. “They must have their own fond memories of the travel.”
She acknowledges that to many non-Japanese people, the practice may seem a little strange.
“I would be a little more [circumspect] if a non-Japanese friend asks me if I would be interested in the service. But if I talk with my Japanese friends, it’s a very natural thing,” she said.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50