イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

Akishima Day Trip from Tachikawa: Whale Fossil, Wisteria and History

昭島市のアキシマエンシスの吹き抜けに吊られたアキシマクジラの全身骨格レプリカ 立川駅徒歩1分年中無休の溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ

Showa-era Akishima: steam-train smoke and Tachikawa Fire Station’s branch offices

The City of Akishima’s official website has a timeline called “The City’s History,” divided into five-year blocks, listing the events of each year without comment. Once you start reading, you cannot stop, because the feel of Showa-era Akishima rises up line by line.

In 1959, Showa-mae Station was renamed Akishima Station, and in the same year through trains began running from Haijima Station to Tokyo Station. In 1961 the whale was dug out of the Tama River, and in the same year Haijima Park opened. In 1964 the Tokyo Olympic torch and the cycling road race passed through the city. In 1967 the city’s first pedestrian footbridge was completed in front of Seirin Elementary School — the very school to which the whale fossil had been carried. In 1968 the Seibu Haijima Line opened. In 1970 steam locomotives were retired from the Hachiko Line. In 1971 a D51 steam locomotive was put on display in Showa Park. The engine that stopped running became the master of a park the next year. And in 1973 came the “first Citizens’ Summer Evening Gathering,” which would later become the Akishima Citizens’ Whale Festival.

The timeline mentions Tachikawa often, too. 1957: Tachikawa Fire Station Haijima Detachment established. 1966: Tachikawa Fire Station Akishima Branch completed. 1968: new building completed for Tachikawa Fire Station Haijima Branch. 1984: Tachikawa Fire Station Ogami Branch opened. Throughout the Showa era, many of the fire engines rushing to fires in Akishima must have carried the name “Tachikawa Fire Station.” In 1959, a sewage-treatment plant was completed jointly with Tachikawa. In the plainest and most indispensable parts of daily life, the two cities have always lent each other a hand as neighbours.

Then 1977. In the timeline, the same year’s entry lists the start of a movement against dividing Tachikawa Air Base into three and selling it off; the agreement on a local plan by Tokyo, Tachikawa and Akishima; and the full return of Tachikawa Air Base. The 1983 entry lists the completion of Akishima Station’s station building above the tracks with its north–south public passageway, and the opening of Showa Kinen Park.

Then: the sign at Akishima Station read “Showa-mae,” steam locomotives crossed the Hachiko Line bridge belching smoke, and branch offices of Tachikawa’s fire station answered the city’s fires. Now: the station has a building above the tracks, the whale’s riverbank under the bridge has become a sports park, and on the border of Tachikawa and Akishima spreads a 180-hectare park the two cities share. Land that was an airfield has become a garden, and the station in front of an aircraft company has become a station bearing the city’s name. For people who remember Showa-era Akishima, every line of the timeline is probably one “Oh yes, that’s right” after another. For young people who do not know, the mere fact that steam trains were running until only recently, nine minutes from Tachikawa, will sound like a small piece of news.

初日の汗は、予約した人だけが持ち帰れる。

体験レッスンを予約体験専用 03-6665-0898LINE

Walking a town that drinks 100 per cent deep groundwater

If you get thirsty walking in Akishima, try the water by the station.

According to Akishima’s waterworks bureau, Akishima is the only municipality in Tokyo whose tap water comes entirely from deep groundwater. It pumps up water flowing in layers deeper than 70 metres below ground: rain and snow that fell on the mountains and soaked into the strata over roughly 10 to 50 years. Because the soil acts as a filter, the water receives no purification treatment; only the minimum chlorine required by the Waterworks Act is added, the city writes.

Why does only Akishima have water like this? According to the city’s explanation, the long work of the Tama River built up a thick layer of gravel that lets water through and stores it. The town sits on top of that thick gravel layer, and so its groundwater is plentiful.

Here I thought again of the Akishima whale. Two million years ago, half of Akishima was sea, and there were whales in the shallows. That sea was filled in with sediment carried by rivers, and the Tama River piled up more gravel on top. The strata that let the whale sleep and the strata that nurture the water the townspeople drink today are part of the same long labour of river and sea.

The city even has a waterworks character called “Chikappa” — a water sprite modelled on the kappa, the river creature of Japanese folklore — which in 2019, the city’s 65th anniversary year, was promoted to official city mascot. A water sprite has become the face of the city. Akishima, it seems, is a town that treasures what comes out from under its ground. Whales and water alike.

On the page of the local history room at Akishimaensis, a small request is still posted. The city is looking for fossils such as sharks’ teeth found together with the whale during the 1961 dig, and for parts of the Akishima whale fossil itself. Anyone who has them, or knows where they are, is asked to get in touch.

Sixty-five years on, the town is still looking for pieces of its whale.

Quiz answer

The answer is (B), the Great Buddha of Kamakura (including its pedestal). The City of Akishima’s guide to the Akishima whale answers the question “How big is 13.5 metres?” with this Buddha. Its page for children also says it is about the same as a large bus.

yogaのレッスン前の様子生徒の足もとにあるヨガマット 立川駅徒歩1分年中無休の溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ

Before you go

  • From Tachikawa: Akishima Station is the fourth stop from Tachikawa on the JR Ome Line. According to the City of Akishima, it is 9 minutes from Akishima Station to Tachikawa Station. Haijima Station is the fifth stop from Tachikawa, where the Ome Line meets the Itsukaichi Line, the Hachiko Line and the Seibu Haijima Line.
  • From Shinjuku: take the JR Chuo Line to Tachikawa and continue on the Ome Line (change at Tachikawa if your train does not run through). Check the current timetable before you set off, and carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO for trains and buses.
  • Akishimaensis (life-size replica of the Akishima whale and local history room): 3-3-15 Tsutsujigaoka, Akishima. 10 minutes’ walk from the North Exit of JR Akishima Station or JR Nakagami Station, or right by the “Akishimaensis” stop on the A-Bus (according to the official access guide). A 13.5-metre full-skeleton replica hangs in the entrance hall, and the local history room has some of the actual fossils and a replica of the skull. In 2026 the 65th-anniversary exhibition “The Akishima Whale, Linking Past and Future” runs from 20 July to 24 October (according to the city). Check opening hours and closing days on the official site (Japanese): https://www.akishimaensis.jp/
  • Where the whale was found: on the Tama River floodplain, downstream of the JR Hachiko Line’s Tama River bridge. It lies along Course E (Tama River nature walk, about 5.6 km) of the city’s historic-site walks (Japanese): https://www.city.akishima.lg.jp/bunka/bunkazai/1004617/1004623.html
  • Haijima Wisteria, Dainichi-do and Hiyoshi Shrine: Haijima Park (1-10 Haijima-cho, Akishima). About 20 minutes’ walk from JR Akishima Station, about 30 minutes from Haijima Station. By bus, from stop No. 10 at the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station take a bus bound for “Haijima Sosha-jo,” “Haijima-eki” or “Fussa Eigyosho,” get off at “Haijima Daishi” and walk 3 minutes (according to the city). The wisteria is usually at its best from mid-April to early May. There is no dedicated car park (Japanese): https://www.city.akishima.lg.jp/bunka/bunkazai/1008365/index.html
  • Haijima Daishi’s daruma market: 2 and 3 January (according to the city).
  • Combine it with: enter Showa Kinen Park by the Akishima Gate (about 10 minutes from JR Higashi-Nakagami Station, according to the park) and walk through to the Tachikawa side, and you can join Akishima and Tachikawa in a single day. Course F, along the Tamagawa Aqueduct, runs about 2.8 km from Haijima Station to Matsunaka Bridge on the Tachikawa city border.
  • All about the Akishima whale (City of Akishima, Japanese): https://www.city.akishima.lg.jp/bunka/kujira/index.html
  • Etiquette: temples and shrines are places of worship; walk quietly and follow any notices. At the memorial to the Hachiko Line accident, please be respectful.

After your walk, the North Exit at Tachikawa

Walk the Tama River banks, pass through the grounds at Haijima, stroll beneath the ginkgo avenue of Showa no Mori. If you trust the city’s calculations, you will have used several hundred kilocalories in a day. Nine minutes on the Ome Line, and by the time you are back in Tachikawa, your legs should feel pleasantly heavy.

One minute’s walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a hot yoga studio heated by lava-stone plates. Besides lava-stone hot yoga, it offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lesson.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30. See the wisteria in the morning, look at fossils at midday, get back to Tachikawa in the evening, and there is still plenty of time to drop in.

A trial yoga lesson costs ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and a yoga mat included in the rental. Come just as you are, with whatever you carried on your walk.

Pregnant guests cannot take part in lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

Studio information: https://ontheshore.jp/ — trial lesson booking: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

At the end of a day spent walking over a sea of two million years ago, breathe out slowly on the third floor of a building by the station. You might even try leaning a little to one side, like a right-handed whale.

Cover photo: The full-skeleton replica of the Akishima whale suspended in the atrium of Akishimaensis in Akishima. (Photo: 漱石の猫 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

More Tachikawa Walks

All Tachikawa Walks (English)

初日の汗は、予約した人だけが持ち帰れる。

体験レッスンを予約体験専用 03-6665-0898LINE

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