The train engine is tucked under an apartment building on a quiet Tokyo street.

This shrine dedicated to a legendary swordsman has become a pilgrimage site for the ill and infirmed.

This water goblin statue represents a 19th-century urban legend about a haunted canal that became a Japanese idiom.

This quirky little private museum is home to more than a thousand stones, carved by nature, that resemble human faces.

This Japanese Manneken Pis gets new outfits for every occasion.

The tallest city hall in the world offers an excellent bento box.

Existing for more than four centuries, the last of Hakone’s historic teahouses serves a sweet, mold-based rice drink.

Legend says the goddess this shrine honors curses any couples that pass by.

Though technically an illegal structure, this eclectic DIY apartment complex is beloved by its residents.

The floats housed in this hall are more than 100 years old, and are brought out for an annual celebration.

It's bad manners to eat and drink on the subways of Tokyo, unless the train is this bar. 

A remote and slightly overgrown park filled with replicas of world landmarks.

Discover the past, present, and future of packaging in this unique Japanese museum.

This tiny museum hidden above a restaurant houses thousands of modern and traditional kites.

After being lost for decades, this striking mural depicting the atomic bomb covers the wall of a busy Tokyo metro station.

An abandoned Art Deco hotel nestled on the side of a wooded mountain.

One of the largest producers of MSG in the world welcomes visitors to its Kawasaki factory with an albino panda named Aji-Kun.

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

A semi-abandoned replica of Prince Edward Island's Avonlea—in Japan.

The largest collection of model trains in the world is actually run using full-size locomotive technology.

The small candy-colored ride is the last rooftop Ferris wheel in Tokyo.

The world's shortest escalator doesn't seem to have any reason to exist other than to hold a world record.

This ordinary set of steps is a must-see destination for fans of a certain romantic anime.

Make your own fake treats at this factory and workshop in the epicenter of Japan's food replica industry.