Emerging from the sidewalk, this sculpture of a whale commemorates the importance of baleen in traditional Japanese puppetry.

Once a black market electronics marketplace, now an otaku shopper's paradise.

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

Drinkslinger is an unlikely vocation for a Buddhist monk, but at this Tokyo bar the enlightenment is served in a martini glass.

A cool dive bar, off the beaten track.

This subterranean spot might be the epitome of Japan's baroque, retro coffee houses.

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

A restaurant modeled after feudal Japan, where the waitstaff are trained as ninjas.

A taste of the macabre Tokyo's ritzy shopping district.

This Metabolist, retro-futuristic residential complex resembles a cyberpunk space colony established on Earth.

Access to this hidden site of a 14th-century mass suicide is prohibited, unless it is to pray for the dead.

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

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

Passengers are not allowed to set foot outside this station, but you can still enjoy spectacular views of the sea from the platform.

This historical theme park celebrates all things noodle.

The former home of queer novelist Yoshiya Nobuko memorializes her contributions to modern-day manga.

A bronze statue dating back as far as 1252, still has remnants of gold on its right cheek from ancient gilding.

This mysterious medieval grotto holds a grid of sacred wells of unknown purpose.

It is said that coins washed in the waters here will miraculously multiply.

Narrow passes cut out of mountains surround the medieval capital of Japan.

A small island with no monkeys but plenty of military ruins.

An art deco ice cream shop covered in vintage train station tiles.

This bridge uses an inverted bowstring truss and is believed to be the only of its kind in the United States.

A ship that lived many lives under many names is now known merely as the "Ghost Ship."