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Offered languages
- English
- Italian
At 44.6 meters, Hakoneyama is the highest point in Tokyo's 23 wards. It was built by hand in the 1670s, when earth was piled up to give a feudal lord a better view across his garden.
Two centuries later the army took the land, and the mound looked down on the Army Medical School. A nurse testified that specimens were buried there at the end of the war, to hide them from the occupation. Construction found them in 1989.
On this private Tokyo ghost tour, you will climb Hakoneyama after dark. There is a rumor that a voice can be heard counting numbers here at night.
A children's playground sits on an execution ground. A lane packed with izakaya was once a geisha quarter, where the names of houses that disappeared long ago can still be found carved into the pillars of a shrine.
As a private tour, you can follow the stories that catch your attention. Ask questions, stay longer where something grips you, and leave with recommendations for what to explore next in Tokyo.
What's Included
Meeting and pickup
Outside the Hakubundo Book Store at Shinanomachi Station, Tokyo
Itinerary
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1
Your ghost tour starts on a street that looks completely ordinary. Then your local expert points out the three-color flags — blue for peace, yellow for glory, red for victory — and the culture halls and newspaper offices flying them. One religious organization holds almost this whole neighborhood, in plain daylight, and most people walk through without ever noticing. The uncanny here is social rather than supernatural, and it tunes your eye for the rest of the night.
15 minutes • Admission ticket free -
2
Oiwa is the vengeful spirit at the heart of Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan, one of Japan’s most famous ghost stories. But the real Oiwa was no ghost. She was remembered as a devoted wife, and this was her family’s shrine long before a playwright borrowed her name. The story has followed the shrine ever since. Even today, casts preparing to perform Yotsuya Kaidan are said to visit first and pay their respects, wary of stories of accidents befalling productions that do not. Then look across the lane. Oiwa has another place waiting for her there: a Buddhist temple with its own claim to her story.
20 minutes • Admission ticket free -
3Suga Shrine
Suga Shrine is the guardian shrine of the whole Yotsuya district, and its Soreisha hall enshrines the dead as settled ancestors, the opposite of Oiwa's fate. The long staircase beside it is the one from Your Name, so take the photo; the night gets heavier from here. Down in the temple quarter, your local expert will show you where Myokoji stood, the family temple that held Oiwa's real grave until it moved to Nishi-Sugamo in 1909. The ghost was invented. The grave and her story was not.
25 minutes • Admission ticket free -
4
Saku-no-ike is what remains of a much larger pond-and-waterfall garden that once belonged to a daimyo’s estate. It sits at the bottom of the sunken valley that Arakicho was built around. But old ponds came with stories. This one had a kappa. People believed the creature waited at the water’s edge, ready to drag the unsuspecting in and steal their soul. When bodies were pulled from the water, what people saw only seemed to give the stories more weight. Just ahead, you will meet a very different version of that creature: the cheerful green kappa that now watches over the slope. It is a much friendlier face for a legend that began with something considerably darker.
25 minutes • Admission ticket free -
5
Sharikimon-dori began as the tradesmen’s entrance to the daimyo estate, before becoming the heart of Arakicho’s geisha quarter. You can still find traces of that past at Kanamaru Inari Shrine. Look closely at the stone pillars surrounding it and you will see the names of geisha houses that once filled these lanes. Most have long since disappeared, leaving the shrine as an unexpected record of a neighborhood that has almost vanished with them. A few doors down, the street takes another turn. Vowz Bar is run by Buddhist monks. Take a seat, order a drink with a Buddhist-inspired name, and try copying a character from a sutra by hand.
30 minutes • Admission ticket free -
6
A short bus ride north breaks the night walk in two and crosses one of the grimmest quarters in the city's memory. Nenbutsu-zaka is the chanting slope, named for travelers who said the Buddha's name on a dark climb and, later, for people who prayed at the sight of the prison from the top. Twelve were hanged there in 1911. The site is a children's playground now.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free -
7
Hakoneyama was piled up by hand in the 1670s for a daimyo's view. Two centuries later the army took the land, and in 1989, construction at the mound's foot uncovered human remains, some skulls bearing saw and drill marks. A storage facility on the site holds them today. People say a voice counts numbers up here after dark. You climb in the dark with a flashlight, and at the top your Local Expert stops talking. A full minute of silence.
25 minutes • Admission ticket free -
8Kabukicho
Lafcadio Hearn collected Japan's ghost stories and is the man who brought them to an international audience. He died in Okubo in 1904, and a stone on a school corner marks the spot. Your Local Expert tells one of his tales there, then walks you to Inarikio, the only shrine in Japan named for a demon king. At Setsubun the rest of the country chants for demons out; this shrine calls them in. You end under the guardian monster, with recommendations for the rest of your trip.
20 minutes • Admission ticket free
Additional info
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Infants are required to sit on an adult’s lap
- Not recommended for travelers with poor cardiovascular health
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
Tags
Cancellation Policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
Cancellation Policy
- For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
- If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
- Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.
- This experience requires good weather. If it’s canceled due to poor weather, you’ll be offered a different date or a full refund.
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
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