Tokyo Kokutai 2013 Stamp Rally Adventure

These two months, I went on stamping at different cities and municipalities in Tokyo. What kind of stamping anyway?

For those of you in Japan who might know, Tokyo, centering the cities and municipalities of Tama district, will host the 2013 National Games here in Japan, and in lieu of that, these places in the Tama district are having this Stamp Rally campaign, from July 21 to the end of October. Each city or municipality bears a stamp located in a designated establishment within it. It can be a merchandize shop, a train station or an educational institution, but most of these stamps are located inside the gymnasiums.

One night in August when I got home from work, my eyes put attention on a poster in a station that says Kokutai Sutanpu Rari- 「国体スタンプラリー」 and on the other day, I begged for one booklet at the station office inside the station, and when I looked at the back of the booklet, there are 30 stamp points of each cities and towns there. At first I though I could not do everything because of the locations of these places, but later I changed my mind and decided to go in every city and put its stamp on the booklet. One of the main reasons is that I could travel at last to the places, even hidden and har-to-reach places in Tokyo where most of the people do go for tourism or some special purposes. I though of traveling around Tokyo some years after I arrived here in Japan to work, so this would give me the opportunity to go around.

Here was the schedule of my stamp rally adventure.

Day 0.5 - Mitaka. (Complete)

Day 1 - Tama, Inagi, Chofu. (Completed)

Day 2 - Hachioji, Hino, Tachikawa, Musashi-murayama, Mizuho, Higashi-yamato, Higashi-murayama, Kodaira, Kokubunji, Kunitachi (Completed)

Day 2.5 - Fuchu (Completed)

Day 3 - Koganei, Nishi-tokyo, Higashi-kurume, Kiyose, Musashino, Machida, Komae. (Completed)

Day 4 - Akishima, Akiruno, Hinohara, Hinode, Fussa, Okutama, Ome, Hamura. (Completed)


スタンプラリー日程

零点五日目：三鷹市（完了）
一日目：多摩市、稲城市、調布市（完了）
二日目：八王子市、日野市、立川市、武蔵村山市、瑞穂町、東大和市、東村山市、小平市、国分寺市、国立市（完了）
二日目（２．５）：府中市（完了）
三日目：小金井市、西東京市、東久留米市、清瀬市、武蔵野市、町田市、狛江市（完了）
四日目（最終日）：昭島市。あきる野市、檜原村、日の出町、福生市、奥多摩町、青梅市、羽村市（完了）


There maybe people who are also grueling this challenge by traveling by train, car, bus, or even biking. I did this adventure by train, bus and walking. The reason for walking is that some places are hardly accessible by bus, and walking would be the best choice for those who have no cars. As a matter of fact, it would be also a healthy adventure, since it may be a two-kilometer walk or more.

So in September I started to travel and stamp.

The first stamp I got was from Mitaka. I live in Chofu, one of the host cities of the Tama District in Tokyo, but the nearest from my place is the Osawa Sogo Grounds, which is in Mitaka, so I went there first and had a stamp of Mitaka.

Then, the other day, I went to Parthenon in Tama, a gymnasium in Inagi and the Gegege no Kitaro merchandize shop in Chofu, where the stamps are located. Going to the locations in Tama and Chofu was easy, but going to Inagi was the toughest. There is a bus going to the gymnasium but during the time I went there, there was no scheduled bus going to the gymnasium at that time. So I walked from Wakabadai station to there, and it's worth the walk. Along the walk before I reached the gymnasium, I got to see beautiful houses and a water wheel underneath a brigde named Kasayato-oohashi. Somehow seeing these houses and the wonderful view took my tire away.

Trip to Kobe and Osaka

Last January 2010, I had a trip to Kobe and Osaka via plane. I had accumulated enough mileage to book a round trip flight to Osaka by Kansai Airport (10,000 miles can get you a round trip flight for Osaka).
On the day of arrival to Osaka, I planned on riding a ship to Kobe Airport from Kansai Airport. Then from Kobe Airport I rode an unmanned train to Sannomiya, then a JR Sanyo Line train from Sannomiya to Maiko, where the Akashi Kaikyo bridge is just nearby.
I went in the museum under the bridge and around it. Just spent almost the afternoon walking and for almost three hours I left Kobe and went to Osaka.
There in Osaka I visited the surroundings of Osaka Castle and then the castle itself, and the night caught me there. Then after an hour I headed to Osaka Station and dropped there going somewhere, walking around, before heading to the hotel where I slept for the whole night.

The next day, just after eating breakfast at the hotel, I already checked out and walked all the way to Osaka Station. It may be too near for a train ride, but too far to walk. Then I boarded a train to Universal Studios.
Even if I went there, I did not enter since I did not want to spend most of my time there and I was planning to go somewhere else near Nanba. So I just spent my time having lunch there and explore the area before I head back to Osaka proper. I rode the Loop line train to a station ( I can't remember the name) and rode a subway to Shinsaibashi.
When I get off at Shinsaibashi Station, I walked all through the underground passage and went up, knowing that I will end up on a very crowded place. As I believe, that is the busiest ang theost crowded place in Osaka. I went to explore some places there, going south, and ate a variant of okonomiyaki before I reached the very huge Namba Station. In the restaurant I told the waiter there that I would want to eat okonomiyaki and he said that they have okonomiyaki. But when I was looking at their menu, my eyes did let me forget about okonomiyaki and instead ordered another, and just realized minutes after that I went there to ate okonomiyaki when a customer beside me prepared to cook his okonomiyaki. But it was delicious wnough anyway that I did not almost regret the food that I ordered and ate.
Then I went to Namba station and look for a train schedule that will bring me to Kansai Airport, then I found this semi-special express train named Rapid-ß. But before I bought ticket I still looked over a place just south of Namba Station, and the place was just wonderful at night. Anyway, I did not have much time to loiter around there and hurried up to buy train tickets and ride already. The Rapid-ß train just came minutes way ahead of its departure time.