Every Place in the Catalogue
1,610 spots
Akita Nairiku Line
Little knownThe Akita Nairiku Line runs ninety-four kilometres north to south through the middle of the prefecture, from Takanosu to…
Goshogake Onsen
Little knownGoshogake sits at about a thousand metres on the western flank of Hachimantai in an area of active geothermal ground, an…
Tamagawa Onsen
Little knownTamagawa produces nine thousand litres a minute from a single source at 98 degrees and pH around 1.2 — the largest singl…
Kisakata Kujukushima
Little knownBasho came to Kisakata in 1689 and wrote that Matsushima seems to smile while Kisakata seems to grieve. What he saw was…
Mototaki Fukuryusui
Little knownRain and snowmelt on Mt. Chokai sink into the volcanic rock, travel underground for decades, and come out here — not ove…
Harako-meshi
Little knownHarako-meshi is rice cooked in the stock from simmering salmon, with the flaked salmon on top and salmon roe over that.…
Izunuma and Uchinuma
Little knownIzunuma and Uchinuma are shallow lowland marshes covering about four square kilometres on the Semboku plain, and because…
Tashirojima
Little knownTashirojima is a small island off Ishinomaki with an ageing population of well under a hundred and a great many cats. Th…
Narukokyo Gorge
Little knownThe Otani river has cut a gorge about a hundred metres deep through the volcanic rock west of Naruko Onsen, and the side…
Katanuma
Little knownKatanuma is a crater lake above Naruko Onsen and one of the most acidic lakes in Japan — acidic enough that nothing live…
Illustration — not a photographAburafu Don
Little knownAburafu is a stick of wheat gluten that has been fried in oil rather than baked, a Toyoma speciality made here since the…
Toyoma Old Town
Little knownToyoma was the seat of a branch of the Date and then a Meiji administrative centre, and it kept the buildings from both…
Minamisanriku 311 Memorial
Little knownMinamisanriku lost a large part of its town and a large number of its people in March 2011, including staff at the disas…
Kesennuma Earthquake Memorial Museum
Little knownKesennuma Koyo High School stood on the shore at Hashikami. On 11 March 2011 a tsunami of more than thirteen metres went…
Michinoku Ajisai-en
Little knownA forestry family in the hills outside Ichinoseki planted hydrangeas among their cedar plantation, and kept planting. Th…
Tono Furusato Village
Little knownTono is where Yanagita Kunio collected the folk tales that became Tono Monogatari, and this open-air site is where the b…
Miyazawa Kenji Memorial Museum
Little knownMiyazawa Kenji wrote Night on the Galactic Railroad and a body of poetry and children's stories that has never gone out…
Osawa Onsen
Little knownOsawa is a toji inn — a hot spring where people came to stay for weeks and cook for themselves, not for a night of kaise…
Zaimokucho Yoichi
Little knownEvery Saturday afternoon from early April to late November, four hundred metres of Zaimokucho — a shopping street in cen…
Fukuda Pan
Little knownFukuda Pan has been making koppepan — a soft split bread roll — since 1948, originally supplying school lunches, and it…
Pairon
Little knownJajamen is one of the three noodle dishes Morioka is known for and it is the strangest. Flat warm noodles arrive with a…
Mamebu
Little knownMamebu is a dumpling of wheat dough wrapped around walnut and black sugar, boiled and served in a clear soy-based broth…
Hiraniwa Highland
Little knownHiraniwa sits at eight hundred metres on the shoulder of Mt. Hiraniwa, on the boundary between Kuji and Kuzumaki, and it…
Kuji Amber Museum
Little knownKuji amber is around 85 million years old, from the Cretaceous, which makes it substantially older than Baltic amber and…
Estimated from distance to the nearest airport or shinkansen station. Confirm actual journey times before you travel.