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Photography Tokyo Walking

Mt. Takao

One of the things my wife and I both miss from our life in Tokyo was the proximity to Mt. Takao (and Okutama), which we would regularly visit for a hike — even with pooch sometimes. The latest post on the State of Tokyo site is a beautiful photo essay on a recent hiking trip to Takao, accompanied with interviews of a few Tokyo-based creatives who were along for the hike. I sure love that scenery.

Categories
Tokyo Walking

Okutama

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been out hiking, something that was rectified earlier today when we headed out to the Okutama area. We decided to head to Mitake mountain, and took a cable car up (pictured above), with the idea of walking down (we didn’t really have time to walk both ways).

It may be silly to say — and believe me, I did enjoying the walk — but one of my favorite things when we go out hiking is that we usually pick up a bento (lunch box) for the trek, and since we passed through Shinjuku station, we were able to get some really nice ekiben (bento that is aimed specifically at people travelling long distances by train, sold at stations that have lines that leave the city).

And what I always like to point out as well is that all of this happened within the bounderies of Tokyo-to, meaning you don’t even have to leave the city to go on these wonderful hikes.

To get there, from Shinjuku station you hop on the Chuo line (the orange line) and switch trains at Ome (you may need to switch at Tachikawa on the way, depending on your train), to then get off at Mitake station. Across the street from the train station is a bus station, with buses that take you up to the cable car station (270 yen for the bus, 570 yen for the cable car, one-way).