Oyama, Shizuoka

The road into Oyama narrows as the forest closes in — cedars and mixed woodland covering most of the town's area, broken here and there by terraced rice paddies fed by spring water that surfaces quietly from the volcanic subsoil of Fuji's eastern flank. At Susono-Oyama station on the Gotemba Line, the platform feels unhurried, a working stop rather than a destination, and from here the town spreads west into a long, narrow valley between Kintoki-yama and the Tanzawa range.

The layers of industry here are unusual and slightly incongruous in the best way. Spinning mills and rice cultivation have shaped the economy for generations, while Fuji Speedway — opened in the mid-1960s and now holding international racing events — sits on the plateau like an implausible neighbor to the paddy fields. The Ashigara Pass, once a post town on the old Tokaido Ashigara road, still has its walking form: the Ashigara Kodo trail runs roughly three kilometers from Jizodo up to the pass, passing the ruins of Ashigara Castle, a mountain fortification that fell to Toyotomi forces in 1590. The Ashigara Pass Flute Festival keeps something of that route alive in sound.

At Susono-guchi, the Higashiguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Shrine marks the start of the Subashiri climbing trail and is counted among the World Cultural Heritage components of Fujisan. The new Ashigara Station building, designed by Kengo Kuma and opened in 2020, doubles as a community center — a detail that says something about how a small town maintains its own coherence while remaining open to the present.