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Japan Times
13-04-2025
- Japan Times
A new tour of Tokyo's most underground attraction
Staring into a pitch-black void. Wading through knee-deep, stagnant water. Dangling a camera over a railing above a concrete abyss deep enough to comfortably fit the Space Shuttle, praying that you can grab a photo without losing your grip. These are just some of the joys of touring the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, ostensibly a critical part of the capital region's defenses against severe weather events but perhaps the greater Tokyo's areas most unique tourist attraction. From April 16, the facility will be conducting monthly tours of areas previously unavailable to the public: For ¥15,000, the new Underground River Walking Adventure Experience Course will bring visitors down to the bottom of the discharge channel's 70-meter-deep, 30-meter-diameter No 3. shaft, one of five concrete silos used to contain surging waters from the Kuramatsu, Naka and other small- to medium-size rivers that have flooded the surrounding region throughout history. The new tour only briefly walks participants down one of the tunnels connecting the discharge channel's containtment silos and pressure-adjusting chamber. | OWEN ZIEGLER On a Mar. 26 demo tour, I had the chance to experience the newly accessible portion of this engineering marvel. The roughly four-hour tour starts from the RyuQkan, the facility's museum and control room, which is located a 30-minute walk from Minamisakurai Station in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture. Next, it's a short bus ride to the No. 3 shaft. I start with a brief yet dizzying view from the top before descending 70 meters via elevator. Here, provided waders come in handy: Though Tokyo hasn't seen much rain prior to my tour, a few centimeters of water remain in this titanic cistern. My headlamp only brightens a meter or so in front of me, but the real attraction is how the absolute darkness of the tunnels on either side of the shaft swallows up any feeble attempt to illuminate them. The view from the top of the 70-meter-tall No. 1 shaft is dizzyingly exhilirating. | OWEN ZIEGLER While the tour doesn't walk visitors beyond a few steps through these 6.3-kilometer-long tunnels connecting each silo, just being in the presence of such an unworldly, shadowy cavity feels as if I've entered a scene from a Junji Ito horror manga, my very own hole in Amigara Fault calling to me. It's not all doom and gloom, though — also at the bottom of the No. 3 shaft is a population of small fish, crustaceans and other riverbed-dwelling creatures who get swept into the discharge channel whenever the rivers above surge to dangerous levels. Walking through the pressure-adjusting chamber evokes memories of both the Lord of the Rings franchise and megalithic sites. | OWEN ZIEGLER From there, the Underground River Walking Adventure Experience Course proceeds to areas of the discharge channel already accessible via guided tour. There's a stroll along the catwalk near the top of the No. 1 shaft followed by a 117-step descent (beware the 117-step ascent) down to the pressure-adjusting water tank, a massive chamber designed to hold water from the containment shafts and ensure the collected surge water enters the Edo River, the exit point of the discharge channel, at a suitable rate. After walking the length of this so-called 'underground cathedral' with its dozens and dozens of 18-meter-tall pillars — features that evoke equal parts Mines of Moria and prehistoric megaliths — the tour finishes with a stroll through standing water until just under a gas-turbine impeller capable of draining 50 cubic meters of water per second up and out of the pressure-adjusting chamber. An impeller used to draw water up and out of the pressure-adjusting chamber and into the Edo River marks the end of the discharge channel's new tour. | OWEN ZIEGLER While ¥15,000 may seem like a steep price for a tour nowhere near as Instagrammable as a night out in one of Tokyo's nightlife districts, it will surely scratch the itch of anyone wondering what goes on beneath the surface of Japan's largest megacity. The Underground River Walking Adventure Experience Course tour on April 16 has sold out. Bookings for the May 14 tour will open on April 14. Tours require a minimum of five participants and a maximum of 16 and are subject to cancellation depending on the weather. For more information and to make reservations, visit
Japan Times
31-03-2025
- Japan Times
Traveling the Three-Star Road, the tourist route made from thin air
Routes, trails and predetermined circuits — Japan can't seem to get enough of them. Only have a week to spend on vacation? It's zipping from metropolis to metropolis on the Golden Route of Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka for you. Want to stretch your legs through the countryside? A few days hoofing it along the Nakasendo Trail will scratch that itch. Feeling lost in mind, body and soul? Several weeks, months or, in some cases, years visiting each of the 88 temples that make up the Shikoku Henro pilgrimage may deliver the spiritual clarity you seek. Perhaps that's why the so-called Three-Star Road linking the central Honshu prefectures of Nagano, Gifu, Toyama and Ishikawa stands out from the pack of Japan's other prescribed tourist routes: There's really no road here at all. That's hardly the fault of the Three-Star Road itself (so named for being part of the larger Shoryudo route thus rated by Michelin's travel-focused Green guide). The landscape it cuts across transitions so dramatically from soaring mountains to valleys to mountains again that it's hard to imagine a traveler in premodern Japan finding the route — starting from deep in the cradle of the Japanese Alps, up and down mountain roads and through sweeping valleys due west for the Sea of Japan coast — desirable for necessary travel, let alone leisure. The rugged landscape of central Japan makes it difficult to recognize the Three-Star Road as a defined route. | OWEN ZIEGLER And yet, when I begin my journey over several days in late February from the mountain-locked city of Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, to seaside Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, the artifice of this route quickly fades in the shine of the gems it links together. Keeps and peaks First in the itinerary is Matsumoto Castle, one of just 12 such fortifications with their original tenshu (tower keep) in Japan. Built on flat land, the views of the black-walled castle are particularly spectacular from across the defensive moat with a backdrop of the snow-capped Japanese Alps. In fact, Matsumoto Castle is so stereotypically beautiful that it's surprising to find the second floor of the tenshu occupied not by a collection of katana but a comprehensive exhibition of teppō (medieval matchlock firearms) that ranges from gargantuan muskets to hidden pistols fashioned to look like sheathed daggers. A folding byobū screen delivers context: In the 1575 Battle of Nagashino, the Takeda clan that then held Matsumoto Castle was defeated by rival daimyo Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu's first large-scale use of firearms in Japanese warfare. Matsumoto Castle is one of just a handful of surviving examples of original Japanese castle architecture. | OWEN ZIEGLER Matsumoto is known for much more than its feudal past — wooden mingei (folk art) and groundwater pristine enough to feed drinkable fountains on the city sidewalks — but the distance covered by the Three-Star Road quickly brings me west into the mountains. Snow falls in blankets on the trip up the Shin-Hotaka Ropeway and atop its 2,156-meter-high observation deck. The panorama of the Okuhida region I'm told is out there is obscured, but as if in recompense, the trees around the ropeway station are so caked in powder that they could pass for Miyagi Prefecture's famous hoarfrost-covered sentinels colloquially known as 'snow monsters.' Snow, it turns out, would become a defining feature of the rest of my journey, at times falling at historic paces of nearly 30 centimeters over six hours. After a stop in Takayama City and a superb dinner at Muku (whose local potatoes are aged to bring out enough umami to perhaps warrant adding another star attraction to the route), the next morning brings me to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Shirakawa-go. As early-riser tourists slip along the ice-slick streets, residents and shopkeepers wield poles several meters long to clear what little snow they can off the iconic gasshō-zukuri farmhouses and their sloped thatch roofs. A visit to Shirakawa-go is surely lovely any time of year, but heavy snowfall in winter makes it a special experience. | OWEN ZIEGLER To see this bucolic neighborhood practically buried in snow is sublime, but such inclement weather comes with caveats: Snow removal has its limits, and walkways can be treacherous. The pedestrian path to the Ogimachi Observatory overlooking the valley below was snowed in, leaving only a shuttle bus running every 20 minutes (plus the time waiting in the ever-growing line of tourists) as the only way up. To the coast By the time I descend from the mountains into the Tochi Plain to the north, the Sea of Japan makes the snowfall a little wetter and a bit denser but no less present. At Zuisenji temple, famous for the Inami style of woodworking that adorns what feels like every nook and cranny of its prayer halls, pillar-like icicles hang from the eaves alongside intricate carvings. Just before I depart, a massive snowdrift slides off the roof of the main hall — thunder from the gods. Even when other parts of Japan can be breaking into spring, the Sea of Japan coast brings at times unpredictable weather. | OWEN ZIEGLER When I arrive in Kanazawa, the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture and last stop on the Three-Star Road (or first, depending on your direction), I see the city has been spared the worst of the region's snowfall. Part of this, however, is how Kanazawa adapts to its surroundings. Whether it's on a tree in the Higashichaya teahouse district or a row of roadside shrubbery outside the Omicho Market in the city center, there hangs yukitsuri — a system of bamboo and rope providing extra support to greenery during the snow-filled winter months. Though gardens in Tokyo sometimes install yukitsuri as a holdover of the capital's snowier past, the pale gold harnesses are synonymous with Kanazawa. The city was once the center of Kaga Domain, the richest region in feudal Japan not directly administered by the shogunate, and its hyakkuman-goku culture — a reference to the luxurious income its daimyo commanded and the pursuit of arts and crafts they fostered among their subjects in lieu of military might. Decked out in "yukitsuri" (supportive bamboo and rope), the Karasaki pine in Kanazawa's Kenrokuen garden is a majestic sight. | OWEN ZIEGLER There may be no greater representation of this than Kenrokuen, one of the three great landscape gardens of Japan. As I arrive, the snow seems to abate, and when I reach the towering Karasaki pine, done up in conical yukitsuri and cultivated and coaxed over the centuries to reach its branches over the adjacent pond, the clouds break for what feels like the first time in days. It's a fitting end to several days spent trekking through some of the most inclement weather Japan's most rugged regions can deliver. Does that tie these disparate cities, villages and rural sites together into a cohesive route a name like the Three-Star Road seems to imply? Perhaps not, but as far as the claim to quality is concerned, it earns those stars going away. Travel and accommodation for this story were provided by the Three-Star Road . No portion of this story was shared with any third party prior to publication.
