Home Japan Study Tour Program
Arrival
Sunday 17 March
Location
Session information
Tokyo
Day 1
Monday 18 March
Location
Session information
Tokyo
Australian Embassy in Tokyo
9:00am – 10:00am
Business in Japan
Discussion and Q&A with Vivien on opportunities and doing business in Japan.
Speaker:
Vivien Lim
Counsellor (Commercial), Australian Embassy Tokyo
Trade and Investment Commissioner, Austrade Tokyo
Tokyo
Guided tour around Tokyo Midtown
11:00am – 12:00pm
This mixed-use urban development totals roughly 560,000 m2 in size, offering a combination of office, hotel, residential, and shops in addition to museums and multi-purpose halls. They have created facilities that can host all types of events, and where local residents can come to relax in an environment with various large and small open spaces within and around buildings that surround the landmark high-rise Midtown Tower.
Tokyo
Azubadai Hills – Biggest mixed use development in Japan
2:00pm – 3:15pm
Finished in November 2023, and embracing the concept of “Modern Urban Village”, Azabudai Hills is a nature-rich landmark with a world-class business center, attractive retail and residential facilities and a huge open space filled with lush greenery that brings people together.
Mori Building’s vision is for Azabudai Hills to become a “Green & Wellness” community, where people live harmoniously with nature and lead healthy and fulfilling lives.
Spanning a vast area of approximately 8.1 hectares, Azabudai Hills boasts an impressive 24,000m² of lush greenery, providing a total floor area of approximately 861,700m² that accommodates diverse urban functions, including offices, residences, retail facilities, cultural facilities, educational institutions, and medical facilities.
Tokyo
Site Tour | Leaf, Minatomirai, Yokohama
4:15pm – 5:30pm
Minato Mirai 21 is a bustling area with many different facilities including hotels, international convention centers, university campuses, art museums and office buildings.
In recent years, this area has also attracted attention as a place with many R&D facilities. Against this background, Leaf Minatomirai will be renovated into a workplace that will be excellent as not only an office building but also an R&D base, with considerations for BCP and environmental protection.
It will also take advantage of its location, which is a three-minute walk from Minatomirai Station and Shin-takashima Station on the Minatomirai Line and within walking distance of Takashimacho Station on the Yokohama Municipal Subway and Sakuragicho Station on the JR line.
Leaf Minatomirai is a value-add project that will be renovated and reopened as a new business hub in 2024.
Tokyo
Soujuan at Keio Plaza Hotel Tokyo
7:30pm
Try traditional and artistic Japanese cuisine at Soujuan. Soujuan’s course expresses the beauty of the season using fresh seasonal ingredients in fine Japanese ceramics, lacquerware, and other types of serving ware. With its bamboo and stone interior garden, the restaurant is truly a different world, where servers clad in kimonos provide an unforgettable cultural and dining experience. This is the best way to experience Japanese seasonal cuisine, warm hospitality, and the authentic Japanese ambiance.
Speakers:
Daniel Gannon
Executive Director, Retirement Living Council
Property Council of Australia
Day 2
Tuesday 19 March
Location
Session information
Tokyo
Shibuya Hikarie
9.:5am – 10:30am
Urban Planners for Shibuya will meet us at Hikarie for overview of precinct
This mixed-use high-rise complex with Transit Oriented Development (TOD) includes offices, a musical theater, an event hall and a commercial facility. Connecting with multiple railway lines and an “urban core” and with vertical accumulation of the volume from different usage purposes, Shibuya Hikarie has a distinctive appearance that expresses Shibuya’s multifaceted nature. The Sky Lobby on the eleventh floor connects the foyer of the theater with the entrance to the offices, facilitating exchanges of people from different fields and creating bustle.
Tokyo
Shibuya Stream & Shibuya Square
10:30am – 11:15am
Shibuya Stream is a mixed use complex completed in 2018 in the Shibuya shopping district of Tokyo. The building is located in the space vacated when the Tōkyū Tōyoko Line terminal in Shibuya was relocated underground in 2013.
Shibuya Stream is the home of Google’s Japan head office as well as the Excel Tokyu Shibuya Stream hotel.
Tokyo
Shibuya Scramble Crossing
11:15am – 12:00pm
An iconic landmark in Tokyo, head to Shibuya Scramble Crossing to see upwards of 1,000 people crossing the multi-cornered intersection at a time. Despite converging in mass from all directions, pedestrians skilfully manage to avoid colliding with one another.
Throw yourself into the action, starting from the Shibuya Station end and heading towards Shibuya Center Gai across the street, which is home to hundreds of shops, bars and restaurants. Alternatively, head to the Starbucks directly above to snap a shot of the pedestrian horde below.
Tokyo
Miyashita Elevated Park
12:15pm – 12:45pm
More than 330m long, the three-storey Miyashita Park is the first project under real estate company Mitsui Fudosan’s new Rayard brand, which combines commercial buildings with green spaces.
Don’t be intimidated by the ground-floor facade, which is dominated by luxury fashion brands including Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Venture past that to seek out Shibuya Yokocho, a collection of restaurants serving specialities from all over Japan. The second and third floors are equipped with 60 different shops and more restaurants, while the rooftop park boasts an open lawn, a skateboard park, a bouldering wall and a multipurpose sports area.
Tokyo
Marunouchi followed by Tokyo Torch
2:30pm – 5:30pm
Marunouchi
The Mitsubishi Estate Group has overseen the development of the Marunouchi area for more than 130 years, evolving it into Japan’s preeminent business center, which is now home to the offices of approximately 4,300 companies comprising some 280,000 office workers. Today, they are actively promoting Marunouchi NEXT Stage with the aim of establishing Marunouchi as a “co-creation platform for innovation through companies, employees, and visitors” cultivated over more than 130 years.
Positioning urban development from 2020 onward as part of Marunouchi NEXT Stage, the aim is to promote urban development that generates improvements in people’s quality of life and which spurs the discovery of and solutions to social issues through the emergence of innovation and strengthening of our digital foundations. Under Marunouchi NEXT Stage, the Marunouchi area will be redeveloped by investing between approximately ¥600.0 billion and ¥700.0 billion by 2030 in reconstruction projects and area management centered on Tokiwabashi and Yurakucho.
Tokyo Torch
Tokyo Torch takes its name from a torch that lights up the world. It is a prominent landmark of Tokyo evolution and the brand new district emerging in Tokiwabashi.
In FY2027, a new Tokyo landmark reaching 390 meters into the sky and 7,000 ㎡ of open space will emerge from the largest city block (3.1 ha) facing Tokyo Station.
Tokiwabashi is in one of Tokyo’s most conveniently accessible locations. Not only is it adjacent to JR Tokyo Station, but it’s linked to Otemachi Station where five subway lines meet and not far from Nihombashi and Mitsukoshimae stations. An underground walkway also provides direct, sheltered access to nearby Tokyo and Otemachi stations, as well as the Yaesu, Marunouchi and Hibiya areas on rainy days. An underground pedestrian network for Tokyo Metro Nihombashi Station is planned to open, too.
This large-scale redevelopment project on the largest city block (3.1 ha) facing Tokyo Station will take 10 years in total to complete. Gradual redevelopment of the site ensures uninterrupted operation of key infrastructure functions such as water sanitation on the block.
Day 3
Wednesday 20 March
Location
Session information
Osaka
Enjoy a morning of cultural experiences followed by a ride on the world-renowned bullet train to Osaka
Accommodation: Swissotel Nankai Osaka
Day 4
Thursday 21 March
Location
Session information
Osaka
Tour of Daikin Technology Centre followed by Dinner (hosted by Daikin)
2:00pm – 9:00pm
Established as a research and development hub for “collaborative innovation,”
Completed in 2015 this centre has consolidated 700+ research and development engineers who were previously distributed across three locations in Japan.
As the base for developing core technologies, the Technology and Innovation Centre generates differentiated technologies and products to contribute to business for the Daikin Group and provide solutions to issues affecting society.
Through leveraging Daikin’s technology extensively, an overwhelming energy-saving initiative has been implemented. The level of environmental quality and function, such as energy saving of the building, interior comfort, attention to the global environment has been highly evaluated and has led to achieve LEED Platinum and CASBEE highest S rank.
Day 5
Friday 22 March
Location
Session information
Osaka
Nakanoshima Festival Tower
9:45pm – 11:00am
The 200m tall high-rise is home to offices, restaurants, shops and the refurbished Festival Hall.
The building was constructed incorporating Japan’s highest level of earthquake-proof technology. The tallest twin tower development in Japan, these towers were completed after dividing the work into two construction periods.
In addition to being home to the Asahi Shimbun Osaka headquarters, Festival Tower also includes an auditorium and tenant offices, while Festival Tower West houses the luxury hotel Conrad Osaka in addition to offices, a museum, an auditorium, and shops. The underground square also links to a subway station, forming an access network for the public.
Osaka
Grand Front Osaka
11:45am – 1:45pm
Grand Front Osaka offers 266 diverse shops covering everything from fashion magazines, lifestyle goods, and beauty supplies to cafes, restaurants, and bars and is Japan’s biggest mixed use retail development. Here we will visit MUJI Osaka (Japan’s Largest Muji Store)
Day 6
Saturday 23 March
Location
Session information
Osaka
At delegates leisure (return Bullet Train ticket to Tokyo included)
Tour end