"This Kind of Travel? Surprisingly Fun... Visited a Place Full of Lies and Saw a Single Glove [Sunday Culture]"

Tours of Unusual and Restricted Locations Gain Popularity
Growing Tired of Overtourism and Standard Sightseeing Routes
Airport Restricted Areas and Pre-Opening Bathhouse Tours
The Trend: "Once-in-a-Lifetime" Destinations

When traveling to Japan, there are certain must-visit tourist destinations. For example, if you go to Fukuoka, you should experience an onsen tour, and if you visit Hokkaido, a snow scenery tour is considered a must for a successful trip. Recently, however, tours in Japan that you might never have thought to try in your lifetime are gaining popularity. These include tours of airport restricted areas that you have never seen before, or visits to bathhouses before they open to the public.

A guide is explaining while looking at gloves dropped on the street during the glove street tour. Mainana Tour.

This week, the Yomiuri Shimbun introduced some of these unique tours that appeal to enthusiasts. For instance, at a recycling plant on the Tokyo Ota Ward waterfront, there was a tour in September this year that allowed visitors to see the crane control room, which is normally off-limits to the public. Participants could watch as a giant magnetic crane sorted out metal from other recyclables.

The artificial island where the plant is located is actually part of the Haneda Airport premises. Normally, civilians are not allowed to enter. After viewing the crane control room, the tour included a bus ride around the airport grounds. Word spread from previous events that this was a rare opportunity to visit places that are usually inaccessible, so for this event, 230 people from all over Japan applied for just 25 available spots.

Tour at the Ota Waste Disposal Plant in Tokyo. A crane sorting recyclable materials. Ota Waste Disposal Plant.

Hato Bus, a company famous for its bus tours, has also been operating the "Haneda Airport Best View Drive" since 2022. This tour offers advance reservations for access to the airport's restricted areas, which are not open to the general public. It is especially popular among airplane enthusiasts, as it provides the closest possible view of aircraft takeoffs and landings.

In December, there are plans for a tour of the control room that operates the Hakone hot spring cable car near Tokyo. This will provide a rare opportunity to see the motors and the cable car in operation.

There are even companies that specialize exclusively in these unusual tours. One such company, called "Mania Han LLC," offers a "Pre-Opening Bathhouse Tour." Scenes such as bathhouse cleaning or heating the sauna and steam rooms are sights that even regular bathhouse users do not get to see. As a bonus, participants can use the bath as the very first guests after the tour. Thanks to word of mouth on social media, these tours are especially popular among customers in their 30s and 40s.

People participating in the Haneda Airport Best View Drive Tour are watching a landing airplane. Hato Bus.

This company actually offers many interesting tours, including the "Everything Is a Lie Tour." On this tour, the guide explains famous tourist spots in Asakusa, Tokyo, but all the information provided is plausible-sounding fiction. The guide tells stories and history related to the sites, but none of it is true. It's a way to make familiar Tokyo feel unfamiliar and new.

There is also a tour where, if a single glove is found lying on the street in winter, the guide passionately explains the story behind it. The guide, known as a "single glove enthusiast," has been photographing and recording single gloves found on the street for over ten years.

There are several reasons why these kinds of tours are becoming popular, but experts believe that issues such as overtourism, which has recently become a hot topic in Japan, have played a role. Additionally, people are gradually becoming bored with tours that mechanically visit only the most well-known tourist attractions.

Personally, I find the "Everything Is a Lie Tour" and the "Single Glove Explanation Tour" to be particularly innovative. If the street you walk every day can look different, that itself could become a new travel experience. Which tour would you be interested in?