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A person standing in front of a traditional building with illuminated signs. 1
A person holding a red umbrella in a forested area with a large tree stump illuminated by red light. 2
A person holding an open book with handwritten text. 3
A dimly lit stone staircase leading up to a building entrance, with a street lamp and a small fountain. 4
A wet stone staircase with railings and a street lamp. 5
By TOMOGO!
Free cancellation available
The previous price was NZ$223 and current price is NZ$200 per adult
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Features

  • Free cancellation available
  • 3h
  • Mobile voucher
  • Instant confirmation
  • Multiple languages

Overview

  • At 44.6 metres, 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 rumour 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.

Activity location

  • Shinano-machi
    • Shinano-machi, Nagano Prefecture, Japan

Meeting/Redemption Point

  • Hakubundo Book Store
    • 34 Shinanomachi
    • 160-0016, Shinjuku City, Tokyo, Japan

Check availability

Tokyo Private Ghost Tour

  • Activity duration is 3 hours3h
    3h
  • English
Starting time: 5:00 PM
Price details
NZ$222.56
NZ$200.30 x 1 AdultNZ$200.30
Total
The previous price was NZ$222.56 and current price is NZ$200.30
10% off
Until Thu, 8 Oct

What's included, what's not

  • Inclusions
    Personalised recommendations before, during, and after your experience.
  • Inclusions
    Pre-experience planning conversation via the TOMOGO! app.
  • Inclusions
    One drink at Vowz Bar (the monk-run bar).
  • Inclusions
    Flexible stops or itinerary adjustments where applicable.
  • Inclusions
    Your Local Expert throughout the experience.
  • Exclusions
    Entrance fees unless specifically stated.
  • Exclusions
    Personal purchases, souvenirs, or optional activities.
  • Exclusions
    Transport to the meeting point and during the experience.
  • Exclusions
    Additional food and drinks beyond the included Vowz Bar drink.

Know before you book

    • Service animals allowed
    • Public transport options are available nearby
    • Infants are required to sit on an adult’s lap
    • Not recommended for travellers with poor cardiovascular health
    • Travellers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness

Activity itinerary

Shinano-machi

  • 15m
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 organisation holds almost this whole area, 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.

Oiwa Inari Shrine

  • 20m
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 storey 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 storey.

Suga Shrine

  • 25m
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 storey was not.

Muchi Pond

  • 25m
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.

Vowz Bar

  • 30m
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 area 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.

念仏坂

  • 10m
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 travellers 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.

Mt. Hakoneyama

  • 25m
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 torch, and at the top your Local Expert stops talking. A full minute of silence.

Kabukicho

  • 20m
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.

Location

Activity location

  • LOB_ACTIVITIESLOB_ACTIVITIES
    Shinano-machi
    • Shinano-machi, Nagano Prefecture, Japan

Meeting/Redemption Point

  • PEOPLEPEOPLE
    Hakubundo Book Store
    • 34 Shinanomachi
    • 160-0016, Shinjuku City, Tokyo, Japan

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