Tokyo Day 13: Asakusa (Again) & Komine Pass

I got up early enough to make a start on packing my suitcase. I got the majority of it put away, and was really gutted the whole time. I don’t want to leave Tokyo – there’s still so much I want to see and do! I wish I could take my lovely bed and the entire bathroom home with me too.

Caz was feeling perkier today, which is great because she was able to go to Shizu-Kokoro and experience the magic herself. Before I did anything else, I dropped her off and said hello to Soka. Then I went for a wander around Asakusa again – it’s really such a fab area. I saw three street cleaners who were dressed up as ninjas and went running and flipping around the streets as they cleaned. Sometimes they hid behind cars and walls, in stealth mode. It was so cool! I had fun watching them for a while.

As I walked around, I kept my eyes peeled for more lovely artwork and just soaked up the atmosphere. It was busy but still relaxing and cheerful. I saw someone in a Charizard onesie, holding an actual owl. From what I can gather from the sign they had, they were advertising some sort of owl café. It was so random that it made me laugh.

There was an antique shop that I wanted to check out. It took me forever to find – it’s tucked down a tiny alleyway and you can easily walk right past. There’s an old gramophone at the entrance of the alleyway, which helped a little bit once I slowed down and actually used my eyes for minute.

The shop is called Hotarudo, and it’s absolutely darling. Inside, old-timey jazz music plays on a gramophone and the place is dim and quiet. It’s absolutely stacked with all kinds of antiques from old clothes and bags, to old gadgets, trinkets and ornaments. There were several beautiful things that I was tempted by, but the price was a little too out of budget. It’s a shame, because I would love to own some Japanese antiques. If you like old things, definitely go and check Hotarudo out. I spent ages in there and really enjoyed myself despite not buying anything.

When I returned to Shizu-Kokoro, the sliding door had been left open and Caz and Soka sat inside, chatting away. It was really nice to see Caz so happy and at ease, and I immediately knew she was as zen as I’d been yesterday. We had a little talk with Soka before bidding her farewell. She’d recommended a little food place just up the road that served mostly okonomiyaki. It’s called Sometaro and it’s a little old Japanese-style building. Before we even set foot in there, we could tell it was going to be a really local, authentic place, and we were immediately excited. The fact that Soka often visits for lunch made us trust the place more – our tea sensei can never be wrong!

We stepped inside and were immediately in love. You come in to a traditional Genkan, which is a small stone-floored entryway, and wait to be invited in properly. Before you enter any further, you must remove your shoes so as not to damage the main floor. The step up from the Genkan was almost knee-height on me so it was quite a lunge to get up there. Utilising our tatami-walking skills taught by Soka, we walked carefully over to an empty table in the corner.

The tables were all low with black grill plates (Teppan) set into them, and you sat on the floor - there were cushions provided to save your knees. We had a good look around once we’d sat down. Apart from us, there were only a few groups of people and most of them looked local. It was nice and quiet, and people were really chilled out.

We were soon approached and handed menus to peruse. Both of us decided we wanted a Ramune soda, but also thought to order some sake as we haven’t had any yet! The bottles we got had a surprising amount of wine in them, and it’s strong (and delicious).

The word ‘okonomiyaki’ translates roughly to ‘cooked as you like’ and like any pancake, you can throw pretty much any ingredients into them. I decided on the ‘Mochiten’, which has rice cake, cheese, corn, and dried seaweed. Caz opted for ‘Gyuuten’ – cabbage, egg, sliced beef, and minced meat. The batter and chosen ingredients come in a small bowl, and you cook the okonomiyaki yourself. There were instructions in English on the menu, so we started ourselves off.

First, you tip the contents of the bowl onto the grill in one big blob and let it sit and sizzle for a couple of minutes. Then you take the enormous spatulas and flip the pancake, letting the other side cook for another couple of minutes. I had no idea that using two spatulas was far easier, but I managed to flip mine perfectly with just one! I really impressed myself as I’m not the most dextrous person. Caz’s flip wasn’t so perfect (I blamed the bulky meat), which got us into a laughing fit. A woman who worked there floated over to see how we were doing and was so helpful with Caz’s nightmare.

Once the pancake is cooked, you use a spatula to cut it into small segments that are able to be picked up with chopsticks. Toppings are then added – at Sometaro we had the special okonomiyaki sauce (similar to Worcestershire but thicker), seaweed flakes (aonori), Japanese mayonnaise (seriously, Kewpie is the nicest mayo I’ve ever had), and a little dash of soy sauce which sizzled furiously on the Teppan.

Okonomiyaki is absolutely delicious. We both really enjoyed it, and took our time savouring each bite-sized piece. Half the fun of it is cooking at the table, but the food is so enjoyable to eat too. I’m not a huge fan of egg-flavoured things - I’m here to tell you that these pancakes don’t taste overwhelmingly eggy. So please don’t worry about that if it’s one of your concerns, too.

The sake had gone right through me at this point so I excused myself to the loo, where I was confronted with a squat toilet (washiki). There was a pair of slippers to wear in the bathroom and I spent a long time staring at the instructions on how to use the toilet. I have really rubbish knees and cannot hold a squat for very long; I ended up clinging to the sink in front of me to keep my balance, so that I didn’t fall in. It was an interesting and authentic experience and I’m glad I did it, even despite my initial terror.

I had to leave Caz at Sometaro and find a cash machine as I hadn’t noticed the signs saying the restaurant was cash only. I felt a bit tipsy as I got outside and the cool air hit me, and drifted along the streets feeling very content and silly. I also saw this panda bus, which didn’t help:

After I’d toddled back to the restaurant and we settled our bill, we discussed what to do next. There is a place we’d really wanted to see during the trip. We had previously planned to go after visiting Doryo-do, but it was too dark and the journey was too long. We decided that we simply couldn’t miss it, and set off on the almost two-hour trek to Komine Pass.

I’ll stop here and explain a bit about Komine Pass, another dark tourism site that we were interested in seeing. Back in the late 80s, the so-called ‘Otaku Killer’ murdered four little girls under the age of 10. Their names were Mari Konno, Masami Yoshizawa, Erika Namba, and Ayako Nomoto. I’m not going to go into all of the terrible details, but Murderpedia has a really in-depth page about the crimes if you want to read up on it. I will warn you that this case involves mutilation, cannibalism, and taunting of the victims’ family – it’s truly horrific. The killer, whose name I refuse to use, was apprehended and executed for his crimes.

Komine Pass was a former road that tunnelled through and snaked around the mountains at the very, very edge of Tokyo in Hachioji. A new, more modern road, was built through the mountain and the Pass became a popular hiking trail. It’s less popular since the murders, as the ‘Otaku Killer’ is known to have murdered and dumped two of his victims in the tunnel there. It’s said to be the most haunted tunnel in Japan, so we had to go and see it for ourselves.

To get there, we walked from Sometaro to Tawaramachi station and took the Ginza line to Kanda station. From there, we took the commuter rapid Chūō line to Tachikawa. The Ōme line (which became the Itsukaichi line mid-journey) took us the rest of the way to Musashi-Itsukaichi station. It was a long trip. As we got further from the centre, less and less tourists were on the train until it was just us and locals. We garnered some interested looks from people, as we have before when we’ve ventured further out of the city centre. We rolled into Musashi-Itsukaichi as the sun was setting beyond the mountains.

During the last leg of our trip, we had an encounter with the cutest old man in the world. He was sitting opposite Caz, and I was standing up between them. He looked like he’d just finished work – dressed nicely, with a big black coat and a briefcase. I would put his age at around mid-seventies. As we’d been flying by the suburbs, I was pointing out of the window at things and Caz and I were enthusing about how nice it all was. We were especially excited when the mountains came into view. The sun was coming down and the sky was pink.

I noticed the man was turning theatrically to peer out of the window and then looking back towards us for a while, and sensed that he was wanting to say something. Maybe he was weighing up whether it would be rude to talk to us, or maybe he was feeling nervous about it. I don’t know, but eventually he turned to us, gestured at the window behind him, and said, “Beautiful.” We both nodded and agreed with him. I managed to say “Utsukushī” which means ‘it’s beautiful’, and he was surprised and thrilled that I knew some Japanese. It made him laugh, and we all laughed a bit together. Then he looked out of the window again and remarked, “Lovely sunset.” before turning to smile at us. It was such a nice moment, and I will always treasure it.

When we got to his stop, the man stood up and bowed his head to us. We bowed back and watched him disembark. Once he was on the platform, he turned back and waved at us with a big smile on his face! We waved back and couldn’t stop grinning – my heart feels full just remembering this. I hope he had a wonderful evening.

The station was small and fairly open-air, but it had these beautiful stained-glass windows.

As the light was fading fast, we decided to grab a taxi out to the pass itself. There was one idling outside of the station so we went over and asked for a ride to ‘Komine Park’, which is slightly down the road from where we wanted to go. I wasn’t silly enough to make our ghoulish intentions crystal clear, but I’m sure the driver knew what was up. He said things like “…But it’s getting dark.” and “Won’t you be scare?” several times, like the harbinger character in a horror film. And like stupid white people in a horror film we bullshitted that we just fancied a lovely walk near the mountains and wanted to see a quieter place away from the city and that we’d be fiiiiiiine. Seriously, we spend all of our time yelling at people in horror films for making Really Stupid Decisions, and yet here we were doing the same thing. He mentioned that about a year ago, some girls had asked him to go to the same place and added thoughtfully, “Maybe they were looking for the same thing you are.” He was far too polite to confront us, but clearly knew what we were up to.

As we pulled up to a road near the park’s visitor centre, the driver said, “The park is closed.” It wasn’t, but I think this was his last ditch effort to stop us. He suggested that we stop by the visitor centre before our walk, and we agreed in the hopes that he’d worry less. Before we got out of the car, he printed off a receipt with his phone number on it and told us to call him if we needed a taxi. Then he pointed out the bus stop across the road and informed us that catching a bus from there would take us right back to the station. It was really kind of him to make sure we knew where we were going. Having stalled as much as he could, he drove off and we felt sort of bad for putting him in that position. I hoped that he wouldn’t spend his evening fretting about us!

We had almost completely lost the light by the time we walked to the old road – the sky was a darkening blue and the sun had gone down completely. There was a chain strung across the road to stop cars from coming down it, but pedestrians can still enter. As we walked, the mountain rose steeply up to our right, covered in dense trees. Caz asked me what was rustling around up there and I said, “Just some critters.” Which is the sensible answer, but I was paranoid that it was ghosts or monsters, of course.

After a short walk, we came to a large factory or power plant-looking structure which hummed quietly. There were lots of lights around it, which was a momentary relief. From there, we could see lit-up houses and hear voices and laughter from the residential streets. This was the last little glimpse of other humans we had before going further along the Pass. As soon as we passed a gate to stop vehicles and rounded the mountain a bit more, the noise and light was just gone.

There were lots of sharp turns that made the road behind you disappear behind the mountain. The road itself is becoming overgrown with grass and creeping plants. The only really clear part was the middle with the dividing lines still visible. On one side the mountain rose higher still, covered in the stands of trees I mentioned earlier. On the other, a rusted old crash barrier was the only thing that separated us from a sheer, pitch-black drop. Looking over the edge was a huge mistake, it just looked like a void. Our phone torches barely lit the way in front of us, and taking photos with flash didn’t do much better. It was so, so dark and cold up there. The further we walked, the more we slowed down. A great blanket of dread hung on us and our nerves were on a hair-trigger.

Here is a terrible photo of the path that I tried in vain to brighten up. The sky looks really light, but it wasn’t.

I was used to the ambient noises of us walking and the sounds of the trees, but a new noise had suddenly started. It sounded like soft footfalls, coming from behind us like someone was trying their best to creep up. Like they didn’t want me to hear. I spun around so quickly that I don’t even remember doing it, and of course nothing was there. My heart was pounding and I felt like I couldn’t move for a moment – I wanted to scramble but there was nowhere to run. Caz asked me what was wrong, and I told her that the Pikachu coin purse that was hanging from her backpack had startled me with its jingling. I couldn’t bring myself to say aloud what I thought I’d heard, not there. I decided to share that later, when we were back in the light.

We stopped walking at one point and had a discussion about whether we wanted to proceed, the feelings of fear had gotten that bad. Instead, we talked ourselves up and swore at ourselves and told ourselves that we were so close now, that we had to see this through. So we continued, shuffling even slower and clutching each other’s hand. I was afraid that, any minute, the torch would illuminate something that shouldn’t be there. I don’t think I’ve ever been that viscerally frightened in my life. It was like Doryo-do but heightened by the pitch black. Something was sick there.

Here’s one of the photos Caz took of the beginning of the road. She has the better phone and it still couldn’t do much in that darkness. I’m putting it here to give you some idea of the atmosphere.

Caz almost gave me a heart attack when she suddenly said, “What is that?” She was pointing to a reflection of our torchlight, which we soon realised was bouncing off of a dusty old road mirror. I calmly asked her to never do that to me again before we moved on. We were literally around the corner from the tunnel itself when we stopped once more. This time we couldn’t bring ourselves to start moving again. Every single cell in my body wanted to leave, and my muscles felt tense and primed, ready to start running away. I think if we’d seen the tunnel itself we might’ve lost our heads completely. So we made the decision to leave. I’ve never been scared enough to have to leave a place before, and I have never felt the way I felt up there tonight.

Again, I’m willing to concede that knowing the history of what happened there might have made us more spooked. So did deliberately making it extra spooky by going on a dark winter evening. But I’m not easily rattled, and Komine Pass rattled me.

We got back to the power station where there were lights and sat down. We had forced ourselves to walk calmly away, back along the dark path and out of the gate. It was exhausting trying to keep ourselves in check when we felt so frightened. Once we were back in the light and sitting down, the abject terror started to melt away and all I could feel was a deep sadness. The place was evil, and terrible things had happened there, but we both expressed feeling melancholy.

We stayed there for a while and said some words for Misami and Mari, the two victims who had been left there. We told them that people still know their names and care about them, and we told them we were sorry that that had to happen to them. Before we left, we said, “Yasuraka ni nemuru.” which means ‘rest in peace’. You can pooh-pooh this if you like, but Caz is a Christian and I have always been very spiritual, and we like to believe we got through to those poor girls.

I was lost in thought as we walked out of the last part of the road. So much so that I walked right into the chain strung across the road. It was at knee height and caught me on my worse knee, so it really hurt. I now have a chain-shaped bruise across my knee like I’ve been hit with one. It was quite funny, though.

This is the new tunnel. Behind the corrugated fence on the left is the entrance to Komine Pass.

Once we were back on the main road, I told Caz the truth about the footsteps I’d heard. She was freaked out, but my blood went cold when she said she’d felt a tug on her bag, like somebody had gently pulled the Pikachu purse hanging from it. She said it was scary but hadn’t felt malicious at all, whereas I was of the opinion the footsteps were definitely not playful or friendly. I don’t know what to make of it, but I’m still getting chills remembering this and writing it down. We’ve decided that next time we’re in Japan, we will visit Komine Pass during the day, with plenty of light. Maybe then we’ll actually make it to the tunnel, and we can gauge how much of our fear response was from the cold and dark. It is one of the more stupid things we’ve done in our lives.

We caught the bus from the stop across the street and it was a relief to be in a warm, brightly-lit vehicle. It was quite a drive back to the train station so we were able to warm up and relax a bit before having to brave the night again. Once we got to the train station, we saw a taxi outside and wondered if it could be our driver from earlier. It was! I approached the window to say hi and he was so pleased to see us. He asked how our walk had gone, and if it was scary. I said, “Um, a bit… it was cold!” and he agreed that it was a chilly night. He asked us what our plans were now, and was really surprised that we had to get all the way back to Ueno. I don’t think he realised how far we’d actually come. We bid him a warm farewell and thanked him again for his help earlier, and he waved us off with a big smile. I’m so glad we got to reconnect with him, and he knows we made it back safely.

I really needed a snack and we were both thirsty, so we popped across the road to 7-11. As we walked in, the girls behind the counter greeted us dutifully then did a huge double take when they realised we are not at all Japanese. It was really funny – I imagine they don’t get too many foreigners out there, so it must have been really weird for them. When I checked out my items, the girl who served me went out of her way to thank me in English which was really nice. I hope we made their shift a bit more interesting.

I honestly can’t remember which station I found this train set in, but it’s so cute!

Back in the city centre, we called a taxi to take us to our dinner destination in Shibuya as it was still cold. We had made the hour and a half long journey from Musashi-Itsukaichi to Shinjuku and wanted to be off the subway for a while. Annoyingly, the top button on my shirt popped off in the taxi and I lost it forever. This was a pain because the top itself is low-cut even with the top button, so I was now essentially standing there with my whole bra out. Luckily, I had a cardigan with me and had to awkwardly button it in a way that kept my shirt together. Once we’d fixed it up, it looked ok and then the situation became hilarious.

We were having dinner at a place called Gyoza Lou. We had read recommendations about it on so many travel sites and blogs, but it still seems like a really local haunt. Every other customer was Japanese, and a lot of them looked like they’d come straight from work to get some food. It was lively and buzzing, people were really relaxed and enjoying themselves. It’s not a huge place, and the kitchen is right there in the middle so you can see everything going on. We sat up at the bar surrounding the kitchen and soaked up the vibe as we waited to be served.

The menu is ridiculously simple. There’s a small selection of drinks and then gyoza. You can opt for steamed or fried, and that’s it. No frills, no pretension, just amazing and authentic gyoza. It’s also really cheap – you can get six gyoza for 290¥ (which is like £2)! We had two rounds each but honestly, I could’ve eaten until I died. No additions or sides were needed, the gyoza was absolutely fantastic and tasty. We probably would’ve had more, but we were really tired from travelling out to Hachioji and wanted to get back to the hotel at a reasonable time to finish packing and get some sleep. I will definitely go back next time I'm in Tokyo!

It’s our last night here in Japan, and we’re feeling a bit miserable. We never want to leave, and we’re also feeling wary about the news of potentially having to be quarantined or isolating at home when we get back, depending on coronavirus screenings. This thing is getting a bit serious, it seems.