Tachikawa from Yokota Air Base: A Weekend Guide and Things to Do

Saturday: Antarctica in Midori-cho, then the art you can sit on

I would begin a Tachikawa weekend with something the base cannot offer, and that most of central Tokyo cannot either: a piece of Antarctica, free.

The National Institute of Polar Research runs the Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum in Midori-cho, on the old airfield land north of the station. The official site says admission is free, and that the museum is generally closed on Sundays, Mondays and national holidays, among other days. So this is a Saturday stop. From Tachikawa, take the Tama Monorail from Tachikawa-Kita Station one stop to Takamatsu (three minutes, by the company’s timetable), and walk about ten minutes.

Inside, you can touch Antarctic ice. You can stand beside the KD604, a snow vehicle built for the 7th expedition’s traverse; from September 1968 to the following February, four vehicles of this type completed a 5,000-kilometre research journey from Syowa Station to the South Pole and back. The institute’s figures are their own entertainment: the record low at Dome Fuji Station is −79.7°C; its record high is −18.6°C; the institute holds about 17,400 meteorite specimens. Tachikawa, it turns out, is a meteorite town. Families from Yokota who have spent a winter on the Kanto plain complaining about the wind will find the numbers clarifying.

Why is Antarctica in Tachikawa at all? Because when the base was returned, the land needed new tenants, and national institutes moved in. The neighbourhood is full of serious buildings with long names. The museum’s full story is in our Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum guide.

On the way back, the monorail itself is worth a slower look. It is 16.0 kilometres long; the stretch between Tachikawa-Kita and Tachikawa-Minami is only 0.4 kilometres, a one-minute hop over the tracks. On clear winter days, sit by the west-facing windows for Mt. Fuji, and for about two and a half months around the winter solstice you can try to catch “Diamond Fuji,” the sun setting exactly on the summit, from the window. See our Tama Monorail guide.

Faret Tachikawa: 109 works around the North Exit

Step off at Tachikawa-Kita and you are already inside an art district. Faret Tachikawa, a business district built on returned base land, holds 109 public artworks by 92 artists from 36 countries and regions, all outdoors and free. The official site gives the walk as three minutes from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station. Many works are disguised as useful things, bollards, air vents, things to sit on, because the planners decided that if a town needs bollards, the bollards might as well be art. One of the works is the last piece by the minimalist sculptor Donald Judd. Some you can sit on. Some you have already sat on without noticing.

Here is the history that should interest anyone from a base. Faret stands on the land of the old base gate area. The square near the Akebonocho 2-chome crossroads, where the main gate of Tachikawa Air Base once stood and English signboards called to GIs, is today a small plaza that serves as the front entrance to the art district. The guide to all 109 works, and the way to walk them, is in our Faret Tachikawa public art walk.

GREEN SPRINGS: goats, a cascade, and Yokota’s sky

Continue north along Sun Sun Road, a broad pedestrian avenue, and you reach GREEN SPRINGS, a district opened in 2020 on more airfield land. The official access guide puts it about eight minutes’ walk from the station. For three years, the developer’s own record says, goats were grazing this prime plot. Now there is a plaza on the roof of a car park, a biotope, and a 120-metre cascade.

Notice how low the buildings are. One reason, the GREEN SPRINGS article in this series explains, is the aviation height limit set by the Ground Self-Defense Force’s Tachikawa Airfield and by Yokota Air Base. Your base’s airspace helped decide the skyline of a Tachikawa shopping district. The planners then left far more open space than the rules required: a permitted floor-area ratio of 500 percent, held to about 150. That is the generosity of the sky, put to use as lawn. Read more in our GREEN SPRINGS guide.

Saturday night: food streets on both sides of the station

Tachikawa Station has two faces, and they are different on purpose. The station had only a northern exit for more than forty years; the South Exit opened in 1930. The North Exit later grew wide decks, department stores and the base-era nightlife; the South Exit kept narrow lanes on land long ago divided into small farm plots.

Start south. Leave by the South Exit and the deck leads into the Alearea complex; Ramen Square is on the third floor of Alearea 2, a minute or two from the deck by its official site. It calls itself “a Broadway of ramen.” What makes it unusual is how the shops change. Since 2005 it has run a “Ramen Tryout,” an audition for new chefs: a document screening, then an interview and a cooking-and-tasting test. The winner gets a shop here and one million yen as an opening gift. The official site says 20 chefs have “graduated” from the square and gone on to become well-known shops. A baseball tryout tests a player before signing him; Tachikawa does it with a bowl. Order at the ticket machine at the entrance, as many ramen shops in Japan do, then hand your ticket to the staff. The story of Tachikawa’s noodles, from wedding udon to the tryout, is in our ramen and udon guide.

Then walk north under the tracks to the side of town that once served the base. On the east side of the North Exit, around what was once called Night-Stall Street, small shops huddle in a yokocho, a narrow alley of bars and eateries. The city’s own history newsletter has a photograph of the Akebonocho 2-chome crossroads around 1952, lined with signs aimed at American servicemen. The English signs are gone; the habit of feeding whoever comes through the gate is not. “Tachikawa Bar-gai,” a bar-hopping event run by the shopping streets, reached its 14th edition in 2026, with 54 venues on an advance ticket. Whether it is on during your weekend, check its official site. Our Tachikawa at night piece tells the story of the black market, the GI bars and the ten cinemas.

One honest note from that same article: a restaurant guide observes that surprisingly few places near the station stay open late. Tachikawa’s evenings are rich; its nights are not long. Eat early, and catch the Ome Line home with your dignity intact.

Sunday: a shrine that brings cats home, then the park on the old base

Sunday is for the north of the city, and it begins at Haijima.

Take the Seibu Haijima Line from Haijima two stops east, past Seibu-Tachikawa, to Musashi-Sunagawa. The Tokyo Shinto Shrine Association puts Azusami Tenjin Shrine twelve minutes’ walk from there. (From Tachikawa Station, the shrine’s official site gives a bus of about fifteen minutes from stop 1 at the North Exit, to “Sunagawa Yonban.”)

In the grounds stands a small shrine to the silkworm god, Kokage Shrine, which the whole country now calls the “Cat-Return Shrine.” The name came from a jazz pianist. Yosuke Yamashita searched seventeen days for his lost cat; the morning after he prayed here, the cat was meowing at his kitchen door. He wrote about it in the magazine Geijutsu Shincho in 1987, and the shrine learned of its new name the way the rest of Japan did. Today people come to pray for lost cats. If your family’s cat has slipped out of base housing and not come back, this is, at the very least, a place to put the worry down for a minute. The official site lists six steps of worship; the last is “gently stroke the stone cat.”

Two rules matter for pet owners. Pets may not be brought into the grounds, not even in your arms. Cats are not allowed in the Cat-Return Shrine, which is either strict or perfectly logical, depending on how you look at it. And this is a working shrine where families pray for safe births: the same grounds hold Tachikawa Suitengu, where expectant mothers come with maternity sashes. The full story is in our Cat-Return Shrine guide.

North of the shrine runs the green path along the Tamagawa Aqueduct, which once carried water to Edo. Head south from the shrine instead, and you reach the Sunagawa Gate of Showa Kinen Park.

Showa Kinen Park: 180 hectares where the runway was

Showa Kinen Park’s plan covers 180 hectares, much of it on the land of the old Tachikawa base. The park office’s chronology runs from 1921, “decision to establish an Army airfield,” through September 1945, when US forces took over, to December 1969, when the US airfield ceased operating, and 30 November 1977, when the base was fully returned. The first 70 hectares opened on 26 October 1983. By 2016, the cumulative number of visitors had passed 80 million.

For a base family, the park answers several practical questions at once.

• Kids: the Children’s Forest and the great lawn of Minna no Harappa, whose huge zelkova tree was already standing before the park existed.
• Bikes: a cycling course of about 14 kilometres, with rentals at the Tachikawa, Nishi-Tachikawa and Sunagawa gates. You must return the bike where you rented it, so plan a loop. The official site states that you may not practise riding a bicycle in the park; learn at home, ride here.
• Dogs: there is a dog run. Each visit requires a certificate of a combination vaccine covering at least three diseases given within the past year, plus a rabies vaccination certificate or tag, or the park’s registration card. Bring the paperwork; the park’s rules for dogs are more detailed than most of its rules for people.
• Leaving: the Nishi-Tachikawa Gate is two minutes from the Ome Line. You can walk out of the park and be on a train home almost before your legs notice.

One more stop is meant for you in particular. About seven minutes’ walk from the Nishi-Tachikawa Gate is the Katarai Ginkgo Avenue, about 300 metres long, its trees kept from the days of the US base. At the peak of the yellow leaves in November it becomes a golden tunnel, and since 2019 it has been illuminated. Somebody on the base planted those trees, and somebody in the park decided to keep them. The whole park, gate by gate and season by season, is in our Showa Kinen Park guide. One practical note from it: the Showa Emperor Memorial Museum inside the park is officially closed for renovation from 1 June to 27 November 2026.

Then and now

• Then (1952): in a “joint operation” between the Tachikawa City Board of Education and the US military named Operation Seashore, Tachikawa Air Base buses carried local children to the sea. The photographs were found in the US National Archives. Now: the children of the base and the children of the town share the same lawn, no operation name required.
• Then (1969): C-130s left Tachikawa’s runway for Yokota. Now: the ginkgoes along the park’s canal are trimmed to keep out of the way of the aircraft that still use the runway next door.
• Then (1943): only military season-ticket holders could buy a ticket at Ushihama. Now: anyone can, and on a Saturday morning the Ome Line will carry you to Tachikawa in under a quarter of an hour.

Cherry blossoms and fireworks: Tachikawa’s two big seasons

If your posting lets you choose a season, choose spring or the end of July.

Cherry blossoms. Showa Kinen Park has about 1,500 cherry trees of 31 varieties, and gives late March to mid-April as the best time to see them; first bloom shifts by about half a month from year to year, so watch the park’s weekly flower news. Away from the crowds, the city has quieter blossom. Sakae Ryokuchi, a green path of about 1.6 kilometres in Sakae-cho, follows the track of an old rail spur that carried supplies into Tachikawa Air Base; the city says it was the first step in using the returned land, completed as a walking path in 1980, and it is planted with wild mountain cherries. Instead of freight, it now carries blossom. The Negawa Greenway in the south and the tunnel of cherries at Izumi-Taiikukan on the monorail are also on the list in our cherry blossom guide.

Fireworks. The Tachikawa Festival Showa Kinen Park Fireworks began in 1954 as an “evening-cool” fireworks show on the bank of the Tama River beside Hino Bridge, and is now held in the park on a Saturday at the end of July; in 2026 it was on 25 July, from 7:15 to 8:15 p.m. About 5,000 shells go up in an hour, and the year before, 745,000 people came. One point for anyone living along the Ome Line: the organising committee warns that Nishi-Tachikawa Station becomes extremely crowded, and even asks the media not to promote directions via Nishi-Tachikawa. So ride on to Tachikawa and walk; the committee gives about fifteen minutes from the station. There is no parking on the day. The paid zones and free viewing areas change every year, so read our fireworks guide and that year’s official notice.

What Tachikawa has that central Tokyo doesn’t

People in Tachikawa have a habit of being modest about their city, as if it were only a place to change trains on the way to Shinjuku. I understand the reflex. I do not share it, and the numbers do not either.

Tachikawa’s daytime population is 113.2 percent of its resident population, the highest ratio of Tokyo’s 26 cities outside the 23 wards: by day, the town holds more than 24,000 more people than live in it. About 150,000 people board at JR Tachikawa Station each day. If a major earthquake struck under the capital and the Prime Minister’s Office, the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defense could not be used, the government’s emergency headquarters would move to a reserve facility in the Tachikawa Regional Disaster Prevention Base. The fourth seat of the nation’s command, in other words, is in Tachikawa, on the old base land. A town people treat as a transfer stop is the capital’s spare room for its worst day. Tachikawa, it seems, is in the annex business too.

Then there is what central Tokyo simply cannot fit. A 180-hectare park ten minutes’ walk from a main station. Mt. Fuji from a monorail window. A free museum where you can touch Antarctic ice. Contemporary art by artists from 36 countries, on the pavement, at no charge. A National Treasure, the six-sided stone pillar at Fusai-ji Temple, made in 1361. And from one station, the Chuo Line east to the city, the Ome Line west towards the mountains and back to your gate, and the Nambu Line south towards Kawasaki without a change.

None of this is a case against Shinjuku or Shibuya. They do what they do superbly. It is only to say that the weekend you are looking for may not be an hour and a half away. It may be fourteen minutes.

Quiz answer

The answer is B. According to Showa Kinen Park’s official site, the aviation height restriction for the Self-Defense Force runway next to the park is eight metres, so the canal ginkgoes must be kept at seven. Rather than lopping them off untidily, the gardeners clipped the tops, fronts and backs into boxes, and an awkward rule became a view found nowhere else. The sky over Tachikawa still belongs partly to aircraft, which, if you work at Yokota, you already knew.

Before you go

• From Yokota to Tachikawa: JR Ome Line from Fussa, Ushihama or Haijima. Stations into Tachikawa: Fussa, Ushihama, Haijima, Akishima, Nakagami, Higashi-Nakagami, Nishi-Tachikawa, Tachikawa. In JR East’s Saturday-and-holiday timetable for October 2026, sample trains took 14 to 17 minutes from Ushihama to Tachikawa. Check the current timetable on JR East’s site before you go.
• From Haijima by Seibu: the Seibu Haijima Line runs Haijima, Seibu-Tachikawa, Musashi-Sunagawa (for the Cat-Return Shrine, about 12 minutes’ walk).
• From Shinjuku: the JR Chuo Line runs to Tachikawa with no change, and some Ome Line trains run through between central Tokyo and the Ome Line.
• A Saturday: Tachikawa-Kita → monorail to Takamatsu → Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum (free; usually closed Sundays, Mondays and holidays) → back via GREEN SPRINGS and Faret Tachikawa → dinner at Ramen Square (South Exit) or the North Exit alleys.
• A Sunday: Haijima → Seibu to Musashi-Sunagawa → Azusami Tenjin Shrine and the Cat-Return Shrine → south to Showa Kinen Park’s Sunagawa Gate → across the park → Nishi-Tachikawa Gate → Ome Line home from Nishi-Tachikawa.
• Official sites (check hours, fees and closures there): Showa Kinen Park https://www.showakinen-koen.jp/ ; Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum https://www.nipr.ac.jp/science-museum/ ; Faret Tachikawa Art https://www.faretart.jp/ ; GREEN SPRINGS https://greensprings.jp/ ; Tama Monorail https://www.tama-monorail.co.jp/ ; Ramen Square https://ramen-square.com/ ; Azusami Tenjin Shrine https://azusami-suitengu.net/ ; fireworks https://hanabi.tokyo-tachikawa.org/ . Most are in Japanese; a browser’s translate function helps.
• Tips: carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO, and some cash. Phones on silent on trains. No pets at the shrine. Take your rubbish home from the park.
• Base rules: for anything involving the base itself, open days, gate access, photography, follow the official base and Fussa City announcements, not a travel article.
• The full feature: our Tachikawa travel guide, and for the base story, Tachikawa Air Base history, Tachikawa’s base-town culture and Fussa and Yokota Air Base.

After the weekend, at Tachikawa Station North Exit

Two days of walking leave their mark: calves from the park, shoulders from the art you craned to see, a stomach still thinking about the soup.

A one-minute walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the 3rd 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 where classes are held on heated lava stone. There is also room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons alone. It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30.

Members of the Yokota community have long been among the studio’s guests. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself. She holds Eiken Grade 1 and a perfect TOEIC score, worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and lived in Alaska for three years. Guests from overseas have thanked the studio for its careful English support, and some have said so in Google reviews. Not every lesson is taught in English, so mention it when you book.

A trial yoga lesson costs ¥1,980 (tax included), with two bath towels, one face towel and a mat to rent, so you can come empty-handed. Pregnant guests cannot join the lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available.

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

On the platform, waiting for the Ome Line, look west. The train goes back the way the C-130s went in 1969, towards the annex that grew up. Tachikawa will be here next weekend.

Cover photo: The East Exit of Ushihama Station on the JR Ome Line in Fussa, near Yokota Air Base (photographed 2021). (Photo: Mister0124 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

More Tachikawa Walks

• Tachikawa Air Raids: WWII History and a Memorial Walk Guide
• Tachikawa Autumn Leaves Guide: Ginkgo, Zelkova and Where to Walk
• Tachikawa Base Town History: Cola Bottles, Yuming, the Laundry Gate
• Tachikawa Air Base History Walk: The Sunagawa Struggle and After
• Tachikawa Sento Guide: Public Baths, Their History and Bath Etiquette
• Tachikawa Disaster Base and Life Safety Learning Center: A Guide
• Tachikawa Bridges Walk: ‘Nameless Bridge’ to a Double-Deck Crossing
• Tachikawa Cinema City Guide: Tokyo’s First Multiplex and Its Big Sound
• Tachikawa Museums Guide: Art, 2,558 Instruments and Things to Do
• Tachikawa Cycling Guide: Showa Kinen Park’s 14 km and the Tama River
• Tachikawa Festivals Guide: Bon Dances, Flamenco, Nebuta and Yokai
• Tachikawa History Walk: Famous People, from Seiji Ozawa to a Comet
• Tachikawa History Walk: Famous People Who Passed Through the Town
• Tachikawa Public Art Walk: A Guide to the 109 Works of Faret Tachikawa
• Tachikawa Farms Guide: Farm Stands, Harvest Days and Tokyo’s Fields
• Tachikawa History: Japan’s Firsts, from Electric Cars to Sazae-san
• Tachikawa Folktales and Legends: A History Walk Through Old Stories
• Tachikawa Walk: Fusai-ji Temple’s National Treasure and Suwa Shrine
• Tachikawa Business Guide: Where West Tokyo Works and Starts Up
• Tachikawa Culture Guide: Ballet, Ice, Anime and Art Near the Station
• Tachikawa’s Green Future: Zero Carbon, Farmland and Springs Guide
• Tachikawa for Foreign Visitors: Haneda Bus, Things to Do, Future
• Tachikawa Population and Family Life: A Guide to the Town’s Future
• Tama Monorail Extension: When It Opens and Tachikawa’s Future Guide
• Tachikawa and Tokyo’s Next Big Earthquake: Disaster Base Guide
• Showa Kinen Park Guide: The Future of Tachikawa’s Unfinished Park
• Tachikawa Station Redevelopment: A Guide to the Future Station Area
• Tachikawa’s Next Decade: Tachihi, GREEN SPRINGS and a New Hotel Guide
• Tachikawa GREEN SPRINGS Guide: Goats, a Rooftop River, Things to Do
• Tachikawa Travel Guide: Things to Do, Walks and History West of Tokyo
• Tachikawa Walk: Slopes, River Terraces and a Flat City’s Hidden Tilt
• Tachikawa History Walk: How a Mulberry Village Became Tama’s Hub
• Tachikawa Airfield History: The 2:12 a.m. Flight to London, 1937
• Tachikawa Was Once in Kanagawa: A History Walk to the 1893 Transfer
• Tachikawa Keirin Velodrome: History, Guide and the Grand Prix’s Home
• Tachikawa Childhood History: Candy Shops, a Base Christmas, Showa Kids
• Tachikawa Aviation Shrine History: The First ‘Tokyo Airfield’ Walk
• Showa Kinen Park Guide: Komorebi Village, Japanese Garden and Bonsai
• Tachikawa Libraries Guide: Raccoon Dogs, Lucky Cats, Local History
• Tachikawa Live Music Guide: Basement Venues and Where TM Meant Tama
• Tachikawa Manga Park Guide: 40,000 Manga in a Former City Hall
• Tachikawa Fireworks Festival Guide: History, Tips and Things to Do
• Akishima Day Trip from Tachikawa: Whale Fossil, Wisteria and History
• Fussa Day Trip from Tachikawa: Yokota Air Base History, Route 16 Walk
• Fussa Sake Brewery Walk: Day Trip from Tachikawa, Water and History
• Hachioji Castle Ruins from Tachikawa: History Walk and Silk Town Guide
• Mount Takao Day Trip from Tachikawa: Hiking Guide, History and Forest
• Hino Day Trip from Tachikawa: Shinsengumi History Walk and Guide
• Kokubunji Walk from Tachikawa: Otaka-no-Michi Springs and History
• Kunitachi Walk from Tachikawa: Daigaku-dori, History and Yaho Tenmangu
• Mount Mitake Day Trip from Tachikawa: Wolf Shrine, Valley Walk Guide
• Ome Day Trip from Tachikawa: Showa Retro Walk, Things to Do, History
• Tachikawa Walk: Nekawa Green Path to the Tama River, a Riverside Guide
• Tachikawa Cat-Return Shrine Guide: History, Ema and Suitengu
• Tachikawa Night Views and Mount Fuji at Dawn: A Walking Guide
• Tachikawa at Night: Bar Alleys, Black Markets and Cinema History Walk
• Tachikawa Ramen and Udon Guide: Ramen Square and Noodle History
• Tachikawa vs. Central Tokyo: Why the West Side Wins on Space and Sky
• Tachikawa Old Villages Walk: History Guide, Shibasaki to Nishisuna
• Tachikawa Oni Park Guide: A Red Demon Slide and Trains for Kids
• Tachikawa Parks Guide: Things to Do Beyond Showa Kinen Park, a Walk
• Tachikawa Place Names: A History Walk Through Its Town-Name Origins
• Tachikawa Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum: Free Guide and History
• Tachikawa on a Rainy Day: Indoor Things to Do, a Local Guide
• Tachikawa History Museum Guide: Local History and Folklore, Free
• Tachikawa Cherry Blossoms Guide: Where to See Sakura, and the History
• Tachikawa Schools Walk: History of Night Classes, Bells, Antarctica
• Tachikawa Filming Locations Guide: Anime Pilgrimage and TV Dramas
• Tachikawa Silk History Walk: Japan’s No.1 Mulberry Village, Sunagawa
• Tachikawa Shopping Guide: Why It Has Everything, a History Walk
• Showa Kinen Park, Tachikawa: A Walking Guide to Highlights and History
• Tachikawa and San Bernardino: The History of Tokyo’s First Sister City
• Tachikawa Souvenirs Guide: What to Buy, from Tokyo Sake to Paper
• Tachikawa Sports Guide: Things to Do for Fans, Runners and Walkers
• Tachikawa Station Guide: The History Walk of Tama’s Busiest Station
• Tachikawa in Summer: Things to Do, Water Play and Heat Tips Guide
• Tachikawa Sun Sun Road Walk: History, Festival and Winter Lights
• Tachikawa Tachihi History Walk: Aircraft, a Beach and Things to Do
• Tachikawa History: The Samurai Clan Behind the City’s Name, a Walk
• Tama Monorail from Tachikawa: A Guide to Views, Mt. Fuji and History
• Tachikawa Tama River History Walk: Floods, Ferries and Bridges
• Tachikawa Walk: Tamagawa Aqueduct and Sunagawa History Guide
• Tachikawa Udo Guide: History of Tokyo’s Underground White Vegetable
• Tachikawa Trains Guide: Railway History and Where to Watch Trains
• Tachikawa Water History: Where the Tap Water Comes From, and Wells
• Tachikawa History: Why Tokyo’s First IKEA and Cinema Complex Came Here
• Tachikawa Wildlife Guide: Birdwatching, Fireflies and Tanuki Walks
• Tachikawa Yagawa Green Space Walk: Springs, Hake Cliffs and History

All Tachikawa Walks (English)