Hidden Gems Across Japan
1,610 spots
Choshi Electric Railway
The Choshi Electric Railway runs 6.4 kilometres from Choshi to the easternmost point of the Kanto region, on rolling sto…
Kasamori Kannon
The hall at Kasamori stands on top of a rock outcrop and is held up on all four sides by a lattice of timber posts of di…
Oyama Senmaida
Three hundred and seventy-five rice paddies stacked up a steep slope over 3.2 hectares, the closest terraced rice landsc…
Kameiwa Cave
A small waterfall drops through a hole cut in rock in a wooded valley in Kimitsu, and for a couple of weeks twice a year…
Hachigata Castle
Hachigata was the Hojo clan's forward castle on the Arakawa, built on a natural terrace with the river cutting a cliff o…
Kazo Udon
Kazo has been making hand-cut udon for more than three hundred years, from a wheat crop the flood plain here supported b…
Ranzan Gorge
A botanist visiting in 1928 said this stretch of the Tsuki river reminded him of Arashiyama in Kyoto, and the town has b…
Kumagaya Uchiwa Matsuri
Kumagaya's summer festival is the Yasaka Shrine's annual rite, held on 20, 21 and 22 July, and it is called the greatest…
Konosu Bikkuri Hina Matsuri
Konosu has made hina dolls for around 380 years and calls itself doll town, so when the local trade wanted to do somethi…
Higashimatsuyama Yakitori
Yakitori in Higashimatsuyama is not chicken. It is pork cheek and jaw, skewered and grilled, and eaten with a chilli-spi…
Soka Senbei and Matsubara
Soka was the second post station out of Edo on the Nikko highway, and the rice crackers sold to travellers there became…
Ogose Bairin
Ogose Bairin is counted among the three great plum groves of the Kanto region and holds about a thousand trees, includin…
Misotsuchi Icicles
Spring water seeps out of a rock face beside the Arakawa in the far west of Chichibu, and through January and February i…
Iwatsuki Doll Museum
Iwatsuki has made dolls since the Edo period, on the back of paulownia timber from the surrounding country and a plaster…
Gongendo Embankment
Gongendo is a flood embankment along the old course of the Naka river, about a kilometre of it planted with around a tho…
Waraji Katsudon
Waraji katsudon is a pork cutlet the size and shape of a straw sandal, dipped in a soy-based sauce and laid over rice —…
Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Museum
Shibusawa Eiichi was born in a farmhouse here in 1840 and went on to found or help found about five hundred companies, i…
Ogawa Washi
Hosokawa paper has been made in Ogawa and the neighbouring village of Higashi-Chichibu for around 1,300 years, from kozo…
Kadokawa Culture Museum
Kuma Kengo clad this building in about 20,000 slabs of granite hung at angles so the whole thing reads as a rock that ha…
Oshi Castle
Oshi Castle held out in 1590 when Ishida Mitsunari, under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, dammed the surrounding rivers and tried to…
Sakitama Kofun Park
Nine large burial mounds stand together in a field at Gyoda, including Maruhakayama, one of the largest round mounds in…
Yoshimi Hyakuana
A hillside outside Yoshimi is drilled with 219 openings, cut into the soft tuff between the late sixth and late seventh…
Kinchakuda
Kinchakuda is a loop of flat land inside a hairpin bend of the Koma river, shaped like a drawstring purse, which is what…
Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel
Fifty metres under a football pitch in Kasukabe is a concrete hall 177 metres long and 78 wide, held up by 59 pillars ea…
Estimated from distance to the nearest airport or shinkansen station. Confirm actual journey times before you travel.