Surreal giant face-pillars welcome visitors from across the globe to this hotel.

This Kyoto Starbucks takes coffee drinkers back in time.

Tokyo’s only Ainu restaurant serves Indigenous food from northern Japan.

Colloquially known as “piss alley,” this narrow street filled with tiny bars and barbecue stands looks like it was pulled straight out of “Blade Runner.”

This 700-year-old street food market features baby octopus and soy donuts.

This bridge is embedded with a giant steel dragon that breathes fire from its mouth.

Twice a day a speeding train passes only inches from the homes of this residential neighborhood.

Vietnam's feral abandoned water park offers access to a post-apocalyptic funscape, now with fewer crocodiles.

This French colonial post office is arguably the grandest in all of Southeast Asia.

Artifacts and memories from the Vietnam war, located in a place that experienced it first hand.

Located off a bustling strip, a silent teahouse employs workers with hearing- or speech-related disabilities.

Ha Long Bay's "Cave of Surprises" houses a popular phallic rock formation.

Giant pagoda houses the car that drove Thích Quảng Đức to his death by self-immolation.

One of Vietnam's most iconic landmarks was built by Japanese traders and is now in danger of sinking.

A gift from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, this is the only statue of the Soviet dictator in Southeast Asia.

A small museum dedicated to Vietnam’s lesser-known Iron Age culture.

This crab paste noodle soup specialist has been doling out its namesake dish for more than four decades.

This museum devoted to the gothic author holds such interesting ephemera as his socks and walking stick.

In an effort to escape the horrors of slavery, one man mailed himself to freedom.

Under a playground is a little-known sealed train tunnel that likely contains the bodies of workers trapped by cave-ins.

This historic, one-acre island is the only legal place to camp in the city of Richmond.

A church now sits over the site of one of the worst urban disasters of early 19th-century America.

A convincing little bit of ancient Egypt smack dab in Richmond, Virginia.

Heron, whitewater rapids, and urban industrialism all add to the beauty of this concrete nature walk.