Japan Walking Tour: Kodaira to Fuchu February 2026

Описание: This time, I walked through the western residential areas of Tokyo—from Kodaira through Kokubunji to Fuchu. Nearly four hours of quiet neighborhoods, tree-lined streets, and the everyday rhythm of suburban life.

This is Tokyo as most people actually experience it—not the famous districts, but the sprawling residential zones where millions live, work, and raise families. These areas don't appear in guidebooks because there's nothing "must-see" about them. They're just well-maintained, peaceful, and functional in a way that becomes impressive the longer you walk.

The route follows the old Ome-kaido road, passes through covered shopping streets from the 1970s that still serve their neighborhoods, and cuts across the kind of orderly residential blocks that define Tokyo's outer suburbs. You'll see Kodaira Sakurabashi Bridge, Hitotsubashi-Gakuen Station packed with students, the Gakuen 1-ban-gai shopping arcade, and endless streets of low-rise apartments and single-family homes.

Nothing dramatic happens. The streets are clean, the sidewalks wide, the parks small but well-kept. It's the kind of walk where you start to notice patterns—how every neighborhood has the same convenience stores, the same vending machines, the same careful attention to detail. By the second hour, the repetition becomes the point.

No music. No narration. Just the ambient sound of a residential city—bicycles, distant traffic, the occasional conversation.

🕒 THE WALK

00:00:00 — Kodaira City
00:13:46 — Kitamachi Intersection
00:34:47 — Kokubunji Post Office
00:50:36 — Renjaku Street
01:16:48 — Kodaira Sakurabashi Bridge
01:37:13 — Hitotsubashi-Gakuen Station
01:59:58 — Gakuen 1-ban-gai
02:16:00 — Ome-kaido
02:39:22 — Musashi-dai Street
02:50:33 — Fuchu Medical Plaza
03:14:40 — 7-shodori Street
03:37:45 — Nishihara-cho, Fuchu City

🏘️ WHAT TO EXPECT

This is a long walk through areas that look similar but aren't identical. Kodaira feels newer. Kokubunji has more students. Fuchu remembers being its own city before Tokyo absorbed it. The shopping arcades show their age—faded signage, unchanged for decades—but they still work, still sell groceries and household goods to the same aging shopkeepers and customers.

What's striking is the consistency. Every block is clean. Every sidewalk drains properly. Every small park is maintained. This is what "livable" looks like at the scale of millions—not exciting, just reliable in ways you don't fully appreciate until you've walked through it for nearly four hours.

Fair warning: this walk requires patience. If you're looking for landmarks or action, you'll be disappointed. But if you're curious about what daily life actually looks like in Tokyo's residential sprawl, or if you just want a long, quiet walk through an impeccably maintained city, this is it.

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💭 QUESTION

Did you watch the full walk, or skip around? What did you notice about these neighborhoods? Did the ordinariness end up being more interesting than expected?

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