Japanese national treasure originally built in 593 CE.

This historical theme park celebrates all things noodle.

Japanese island famous for poison gas and fluffy bunnies.

If Hello Kitty were Mickey Mouse, this would be Disneyland.

This spa theme park lets its guests take a dip in pools of coffee, wine, or ramen broth.

The magical, mossy forest that inspired Princess Mononoke.

Every autumn, this hillside is ablaze with red summer cypress.

This faux-seedy Japanese arcade is made up to look like a maze of alleys straight out of a cyberpunk dystopia.

A beautiful, dense forest in the shadow of Mount Fuji, with a tragic reputation.

An exquisite tunnel of cascading flowers.

On Japan's Tashirojima Island, cats are king.

Inside an old airplane hangar, friends and strangers alike play on a massive trampoline.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

Bring your own cardboard to the slippery slopes of concrete hidden in a neighborhood park.

An artsy hidden staircase leads to breathtaking views of San Francisco.

Not quite the menace it once was, this monster still has some chops.

Every color in the rainbow awaits.

The original "capsule building" is a masterpiece of Metabolist architecture.

A magical place that lets you play in and explore the world of Studio Ghibli.

A disconnected rotary phone for "calling" lost loved ones offered a unique way of dealing with grief in disaster-stricken Japan.