Ever since I bought my bicycle I’ve been cycling around the western suburbs of Tokyo, mostly in the hunt for retro video games I can use to learn Japanese, but cycling nonetheless. Most the time I am just going through fairly nondescript places of houses and straight roads but if you explore enough, you’ll suddenly stumble upon what is effectively a bustling town way out of the city centre. That’s what happened to me the first time I went to Tachikawa, I was really taken aback by how a city suddenly materialised out of thin air. That’s the fun of exploring.

On that particular day I didn’t have a huge amount of time to stop off, but I knew I needed to come back for a dedicated day trip. Thankfully Tokyo has plenty of sunny days to choose from and a month later I was back, though with the train this time. The thing I find most striking about Tachikawa is the monorail that runs above the rest of the city, relatively new with the first part only being opened in 1998. Maybe I’ve watched that episode of Simpsons too many times (Monorail, Monorail, Monorail!), but there really is something futuristic about watching the carriages going over your head in wide open space. Lion paintings never hurt either. I didn’t actually ride it as that would have taken me out of the area, but it would be fun to ride the length of it another day.

The main city area is centred around the train station but most of Tachikawa is completely different. One large part is an air base for the Japanese Self-Defence Force, their equivalent of the military. Perhaps unsurprisingly there wasn’t a great deal on show to photograph here and being a foreigner trying to photograph a military base probably wouldn’t have been the best look. With that in mind I headed onto what I really wanted to explore which is the vast Showa-Kinen Memorial Park. Showa being Emperor Hirohito who died in 1989.  Unfortunately, I had made a miscalculation, arriving at the entrance gates at 16:30 when the park actually closes at 17:00. However, I still paid my entry fee and had a lovely brisk walk through the park, again a precursor to what will inevitably be another visit on another day. Thankfully the park fountain was at least fully operational which made for some great photos just at the sun was starting to set.

To finish up I explored the centre of Tachikawa at night, and as you probably know, Tokyo really comes to life after dark. The Japanese really do like their city lights bright, which is great for photography and there was just so much colour popping out from my surroundings. The giant red arch is another creative flourish that gives the city a sense of its own identity.

Most tourists will never reach this far out of the centre of Tokyo, even in a three-week trip, as for first timers in Japan there’s just so many famous hotspots that are higher on the agenda. Whether that’s inside or outside Tokyo. That is a real shame as there is so much more to see outside of the centre that people are simply not even aware of. If you do have a day spare on your trip, or are visiting for the second or third time, then I do really recommend exploring other parts of Tokyo, like Tachikawa, that offer something a bit different to the same old tourist traps. It’ll give you a much more rounded view of the city, as well as give a greater insight into the actual lives of the locals.

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