Hello Ridgeliners!

It’s been 10 months since my last big Tokyo walk, so once again, here we go — I’m gunna walk the heck out of Tokyo. And once again, I’m running a pop-up newsletter for the walk: TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO³!

You can sign up here:

(Note: If you subscribed to my previous TTTs, you aren’t subscribed to this one; I like all my pop-up newsletters to be enthusiastically consented to!)

This third edition (part one, part two) of my TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO series begins on November 5th and ends on the 12th. It’s going to be a little different from my previous two walks. Those walks had me staying in one central point in Tokyo and walking out, each day, in little tendrils reaching for the edges of the city. This time. I’m doing a linear walk, carrying all my gear, staying in a different hotel each night.

The idea in part three is to walk the full length of “Tokyo” — the prefecture, the city-state, the metropolis, the “to” (都) (the only one of these in Japan) — in order to feel the gradients of life and landscape from edge to edge.

So my walk begins in Disneyland. Well, next to Disneyland. The most man-made of man-made stuff in the district. I’m not going into Disneyland itself (not on this trip at least), just staying on the edge in one of its bizarre hotels. And it’s from there the walk will begin. I’ll make my way into central Tokyo, and then out west to Tachikawa, further and further out, finally finishing with a 41 kilometer+ “walk” (hike) (round trip) up to the highest point in TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO: Mt. Kumotori. We’ll be going from reclaimed land on the edge of Chiba Prefecture, to the peak of nature, right smack on the intersection of Tokyo, Saitama, and Yamanashi Prefectures. Roughly 143 kilometers (but probably longer, I suspect, since I’ll be wiggling around a bit).

I’m simplifying the rules a bit, mainly because I’m hauling my pack around with me each day. So the walking rules of TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO³ will be:

1. Walk 15-40 (!!) kilometers each day
2. Take at least one person’s portrait each day
3. Import / edit / process the day’s digital photographs (I’ll be hauling around my Hasselblad as well, aiming for 3-5 medium format shots / day)
4. Write 1,000 - 5,000 words each night
5. Publish the photos and essay before bed
6. Clock some solid sleep

The main difference is that I won’t be huffing seven copies of Kissa by Kissa — it’s just too much stuff, and I’d rather replace the books with the Hasselblad on this trip.

As usual, I should make note: This project is made possible and freely available to all by the support of SPECIAL PROJECTS members and their memberships. Members get access to all sorts of goodies including archives of nine (!!) other pop-up newsletters that I’ve written over the previous few years (clocking in at several hundred thousand words).

Many thanks to all the members out there for your continued support and encouragement as we wrap up year five (!!) of the membership program. None of this would be possible without your support.

Sign up for TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO³ here.

See you all on November 5,
C