Yama-no-Furusato Mura Visitor Center was added to Your Favorites!
Chichibu-Tama-Kai NP, Tokyo
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
Before Lake Okutama, the park’s landscape held Hisashi (日指), Minami (南) and Kukizawa (岫沢). Their Kashima Odori survived dam-driven displacement, and UNESCO inscribed the dance in 2022.
Ogouchi’s Kashima Odori may take its name from a line in the opening Sanbasō; 6 men in women’s costumes and ornate crowns perform 11 pieces, with movements tracing early kabuki.
A visitor-center interpreter highlights local Okutama Yamame at the park’s Yamasemi cafe. This all-female, triploid fish does not mature and can grow beyond 2 kg in 3 years—a giant for a yamame.
Before a walk, an interpreter scouts the grounds and lets that day’s discoveries set the theme: fresh bite marks, scratches on tree trunks or tiny stream creatures may become the tour’s main story.
A visitor-center interpreter says macaques and deer now appear on the grounds more often than longtime staff remember. The interpreter suggests less-managed forests may let wildlife range closer.
A nearby nature trail passes the former Kamo Shrine, old wasabi beds and charcoal-kiln remains. These traces of mountain livelihoods help tell the human story explored at the visitor center.
Many displays here are handmade by the center’s interpreters and designed to be touched. Visitors can explore the surrounding nature, history and human stories through hands-on exhibits.
Summer around the center has a surprisingly varied chorus: the park lists 10 kinds of cicada among its insects, spanning habitats from foothill woodland to deeper mountain forest.
While many trees stand bare, kanzakura—cold-season cherry—blooms around the park in winter, bringing blossoms to a landscape many visitors might expect to see asleep.
