MORE ABOUT US

Hisanori Ohara (also known as Harry) was a busy Japanese "salaryman" (the Japanese term for businessman) working at Oji Paper when he was dispatched to Canada on a six year term about ten years ago. As an international sales manager, part of his job required him to organize custom VIP trips and tours for their best customers. It was there he acquired skills to pull together complicated tours involving many people while polishing his English skills.

While in Vancouver, Harry met Pauline (his wife). They spent almost every weekend up in the BC mountains hiking, camping, exploring and sharing a great love for the outdoors.

Upon returning to Japan, Pauline quit her finance job and started organizing outdoor adventure tours in Japan. Harry helped out on weekends, driving around, providing support and running around up in the mountains with their customers (and therefore ended up working seven days a week!). In 2009, Harry took the big leap and quit his comfortable job of over 25 years at Oji Paper to join Adventure Divas full time. As the Chief Operations Officer, Harry is now in charge of everything from logistics, customer service, IT and planning.

Harry's other mission is to welcome and support foreign visitors and foreigners living in Japan so that they too can explore all the wonderful treasures that Japan has to offer.  In order to do this, Harry set up Avid Adventures Japan through which he organizes custom tours and also provides operational and logistical support to create an unforgettable experience in Japan.

Pauline enjoyed outdoor activities in the great Canadian outdoors ever since childhood and spent almost every weekend mountain biking, canoeing, camping, hiking, skiing, snowboarding and generally romping around outside. In 1997, she moved from Toronto to Vancouver to take on a new work assignment. Needless to say, she took this fine opportunity to further ramp up her outdoor activities by taking up trail running, kayaking and adventure racing (yes, she was very busy!).

Although Pauline had spent most of her life in Canada, she moved to Japan in 2002 when her Japanese husband (Harry Ohara) finished his expat term in Vancouver. Pauline started a new job in finance in Tokyo and also continued to devote herself to adventure racing, which was still relatively new in Japan at the time. Leveraging her Canadian-based outdoor experience, she participated in many races in Japan and abroad and became a very active member in Japan's adventure race community.

It was at this time that she realized that there weren't very many women in Japan who were involved in outdoors activities and outdoor sports. When she asked around as to whether other women were even interested in going out into the outdoors, the answer she received was a unified, resounding "YES!" They wanted to climb mountains, they wanted to paddle the oceans, and yes, they wanted to go outside and sleep in a tent and sleeping bag! They just didn't know how and never had the opportunity to do so. Thus, the motivation to start up Adventure Divas.

Founded in 2008, Adventure Divas is an outdoor adventure company located in Tokyo, Japan. Our main activities include trail running, hiking and backpacking.

We Play in the Outdoors!

Adventure Divas organizes more than seventy outdoor trips and events each year. Our monthly activities include trail running, hiking, camping,  navigation and map reading.

Avid Adventures Japan organizes custom tours and travel support packages for individuals and organizations from overseas.

We Organize Custom Trips and Tours 

The UTMF race does not provide tour or support packages in English so it was suggested that Avid Adventures set up a few race support packages to support the international community. Last year, we supported over fifty racers and supporters who came to Japan from overseas for the UTMF and STY. This year, we hope to continue to improve our services to provide you with an unforgettable experience in Japan.

 And sometimes we sit in front of our computers...

In addition to our outdoor trips, we also do the following:

• English/Japanese translation work (e.g. websites, books and magazines, outdoor catalogues, advertisements, presentations) Last year we translated "Ultramarathon Man" by Dean Karnazes and this year we're in midst of translating "Eat & Run" by Scott Jurek.
• Coordination, planning and consulting (custom group tours, corporate tours, media tours, etc.)