A friend invited me on a day trip to the town Okutama. I'd never heard of the place before, and her reason for going there was to look at some abandoned building, so I imagined we'd end up in some rural ghost town full of abandoned factory buildings in the very outskirts of Tokyo with not so much as a Family Mart in sight. And I was actually right about two things. Okutama is located in the Nishitama District, which is as far west as you'll get while still being in the Tokyo Prefecture. We made a stop on the way so I don't remember exactly how long it took us to get there, but I'm pretty sure it's at least two hours by train from Shinjuku, probably more. And while we didn't really explore the whole area around Okutama station, which seemed to be the center of the village, we couldn't find a single Family Mart, or any other convenience store either. However, I was totally wrong on the ghost town/factory part. The nature was amazing, with lots of beautiful views. But first, two photos of the station. As you can see there are a lot of mountains in the area, and a lot of people came there in hiking gear.
