"The Dance of Fools" is Japan's largest dance festival.

Giant sand sculptures of famous people and places are on display near the Tottori sand dunes.

An abandoned giant glass dome sits in the bay in “the Venice of the East.”

"Bug Bug" Land, a natural park for beetle watching, still hasn't fully recovered from Fukushima's nuclear disaster.

The abandoned Japanese amusement park once loomed as a dystopian Disneyland.

The 10,000 Torii shrine.

More tin toys than you can shake a clapping monkey at.

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

A Buddhist temple to honor insects that died for science.

An ordinary pond with fish from out of this world.

Thirty architectural gems from the 19th- and early 20th-century Tokyo were restored and relocated to this space.

A shrine contains nearly 200 statues of the Buddhist deity Jizo, dressed in bibs by parents who have lost a child.

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

A rare festival blending religion, blacksmiths, vagina dentata, sex workers, and the straight-up facts of life.

A tiny cafe that recreates the Japanese elementary school lunch experience.

Tokyo’s only Vaudeville-cuckoo clock–steampunk-Victorian curio cabinet time piece.

The freshest fish here are the ones you catch yourself.

This little blue house pokes out over the campus of UC San Diego, seven stories high.

A large sculptural artwork and garden in Escondido, California.

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

Bioluminescent firefly squid light up this Japanese fishing port.

The largest of the Fuji Five Lakes is home to an impressive swan population—some real, some with paddles, and one with an observation deck.

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

The Japanese mayo factory famous for its cute mascot.