Every Place in the Catalogue
1,610 spots
Hoki Museum
Little knownHoki is the first museum in Japan devoted entirely to realist painting — work so precisely rendered that at a distance i…
Illustration — not a photographSakura Samurai Houses
Little knownSakura was a castle town of the Hotta clan, close enough to Edo that its domain school and its samurai mattered, and thr…
Illustration — not a photographNational Museum of Japanese History
Little knownThis is the national museum for the history of Japan, and it is not in Tokyo — it is on the grounds of the old Sakura ca…
Boso Peninsula Railway Crossing
Little knownTwo small railways meet end to end at a station in the middle of nowhere and, between them, cross the Boso peninsula. Th…
Illustration — not a photographOkamoto Pier
Little knownA wooden pier about 160 metres long, built in 1921 to land fish and out of that use since 1961, running straight out fro…
Ezawa
Little knownKatsuura tantanmen is not Sichuan tantanmen and does not pretend to be. There is no sesame paste and no peanut. It is a…
Katsuura Morning Market
Little knownThe lord of Katsuura castle started this market in 1591 to get farmers and fishermen trading with each other, and it has…
Awamata Falls
Little knownAwamata is a broad shallow fall about thirty metres high on the upper Yoro river, and it is unlike most Japanese waterfa…
Illustration — not a photographChoshi Electric Railway
Little knownThe Choshi Electric Railway runs 6.4 kilometres from Choshi to the easternmost point of the Kanto region, on rolling sto…
Oyama Senmaida
Little knownThree hundred and seventy-five rice paddies stacked up a steep slope over 3.2 hectares, the closest terraced rice landsc…
Kameiwa Cave
Little knownA small waterfall drops through a hole cut in rock in a wooded valley in Kimitsu, and for a couple of weeks twice a year…
Hachigata Castle
Little knownHachigata was the Hojo clan's forward castle on the Arakawa, built on a natural terrace with the river cutting a cliff o…
Kazo Udon
Little knownKazo has been making hand-cut udon for more than three hundred years, from a wheat crop the flood plain here supported b…
Ranzan Gorge
Little knownA botanist visiting in 1928 said this stretch of the Tsuki river reminded him of Arashiyama in Kyoto, and the town has b…
Kumagaya Uchiwa Matsuri
Little knownKumagaya's summer festival is the Yasaka Shrine's annual rite, held on 20, 21 and 22 July, and it is called the greatest…
Konosu Bikkuri Hina Matsuri
Little knownKonosu has made hina dolls for around 380 years and calls itself doll town, so when the local trade wanted to do somethi…
Higashimatsuyama Yakitori
Little knownYakitori in Higashimatsuyama is not chicken. It is pork cheek and jaw, skewered and grilled, and eaten with a chilli-spi…
Soka Senbei and Matsubara
Little knownSoka was the second post station out of Edo on the Nikko highway, and the rice crackers sold to travellers there became…
Ogose Bairin
Little knownOgose Bairin is counted among the three great plum groves of the Kanto region and holds about a thousand trees, includin…
Illustration — not a photographMisotsuchi Icicles
Little knownSpring water seeps out of a rock face beside the Arakawa in the far west of Chichibu, and through January and February i…
Iwatsuki Doll Museum
Little knownIwatsuki has made dolls since the Edo period, on the back of paulownia timber from the surrounding country and a plaster…
Gongendo Embankment
Little knownGongendo is a flood embankment along the old course of the Naka river, about a kilometre of it planted with around a tho…
Waraji Katsudon
Little knownWaraji katsudon is a pork cutlet the size and shape of a straw sandal, dipped in a soy-based sauce and laid over rice —…
Illustration — not a photographShibusawa Eiichi Memorial Museum
Little knownShibusawa Eiichi was born in a farmhouse here in 1840 and went on to found or help found about five hundred companies, i…
Estimated from distance to the nearest airport or shinkansen station. Confirm actual journey times before you travel.