Japan's longest-running music festival takes place on an isolated butterfly-shaped island.

Along the side of the road on a small Japanese island is an extensive garden of uniquely designed Shisa statues.

A bovine sumo match in which both bulls live to fight another day.

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

This historic hydroelectric power plant in Japan has been preserved and is open to the public.

Japan's largest and oldest annual procession of floats, begun in 869.

This bridge is so steep it looks like a rollercoaster.

For hundreds of years, participants in this Japanese festival have been making babies cry to ward off demons.

Japan's largest area of "pink moss" turns the hillside bright pink every spring.

Cherry blossom season comes early in this Japanese town where pink flowers line the streets and riverbanks.

These Japanese gardens are blankets of light for dark winter nights.

White beach sands made of the remains of tiny, star shaped creatures.

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

This little replica of Lady Liberty provides a bit of NYC in a Japanese city.

The largest volcanic caldera in Japan holds an entire city in its maw.

A Japanese cat island also populated by the descendants of a band of banished samurai.

Unusual hexagonal rocks formed by cooling lava named for their resemblance to traditional Japanese tatami mats.

A steaming, boiling hellscape sources Hokkaido's thermal baths.

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

Shells collected from over a hundred different countries line the walls, floors and ceilings of this fantasy museum.

With over 12,000 different species of plants, this botanical garden is Japan's oldest and most diverse.

This pair of small sea rocks has been "wed" using rope and ancient Shinto tradition.

This mesmerizingly colorful pond looks like a scene straight out of a fairytale.

A Japanese corporation has turned this small island town into living modern art gallery.