The yawning maw of this pagan visage is said to bite off the hands of liars.

If Hello Kitty were Mickey Mouse, this would be Disneyland.

This ancient temple is set up to take you on a pilgrimage of self.

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

What's believed to be the country's first shrine is, in Shintō mythology, the annual meeting place of the gods.

Crawl through the hole in the middle of this stone to break off a bad relationship or initiate a good one.

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

A 59-ft. robot statue looks over the citizens of earthquake-ravaged Kobe.

A tiny collection of traditional Japanese woodblock prints, open only when the owner feels like it.

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

Closed for decades, this strange symbol of Japan's Expo '70 has finally opened its psychedelic insides to the public.

Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Dome.

A Buddhist temple to honor insects that died for science.

One of the first hotel rooms in a pod.

Meet the world's longest tapeworm in a collection that really gets under your skin.

Enormous underground chamber built to detect 'ghost particles' of the universe.

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

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

A plaque marks the site directly below the mid-air detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima.

The legendary birthplace of the Japanese maneki-neko is dotted with hundreds of lucky beckoning cats.

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

Japanese national treasure originally built in 593 CE.

The 10,000 Torii shrine.

Bioluminescent firefly squid light up this Japanese fishing port.