Okutama

So, since blogging obviously isn't my thing, I've decided to just give up on the idea of keeping some kind of timeline. So here's a post on a trip some friends and I did in November. Enjoy!


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.

 

From there we took a bus out to Okutama Lake, a big artificial lake that serves as a drinking water reservoir for the Tokyo area. Here's a photo of the dam taken from the bus.

  

We didn't stop by the dam, but continued with the bus along the lake for a while to go see a temple and search for the abandoned building (a ropeway station that's been closed since the 60's). Below is the view from the bus stop. Sadly we didn't have time to go out on the bridge.

 

From here we walked along the lake to the temple, which was located higher up on one of the mountains. The view was stunning all the way. 

The leaves had started to change to autumn colours, but the weather was really good and it was pretty warm during the day.

 

After the visit to the temple we set out to find the ropeway station, and went on a short bus ride to where it was supposed to be. However, we didn't have much time until the last bus back to the train station would leave and we ended up searching for the ropeway on the wrong side of the road, so unfortunately we never got to see it. Maybe next time :)

Lastly, some bonus pictures from the stop we made on the way. When the train stopped in the little town Ome we heard what we thought were a shinto procession, so we got off the train to have a look. However, it turned out to be a samba carnival procession that was a part of some kind of international festival. There were food stalls selling dishes from all over the world, and we also got to see a flamenco performance by some Japanese ladies. One should get off the train at random stations more often :)