The original location of the eponymous site of Japan’s Yayoi period is now lost in time.

Students pray here in hopes of entering one of Japan’s most prestigious universities.

It is rumored that if you spot this little golden frog hiding in plain sight, good luck will come your way.

A serene mountaintop temple complex featuring one big, bronze Buddha.

This is no ordinary coffee chain outlet—it's an architectural masterpiece.

The former site of Fukuoka’s legendary ramen joint works hard to guide customers to the “original” original.

A bizarre, tuberculosis sanatorium-themed café moonlighting as an underground art gallery.

In the oldest zen temple stands a descendant of the very tree that introduced tea to Japanese culture.

The birthplace of the Japanese idiom "wet clothes" meaning “false accusation."

Japan’s only surviving winding tower.

The floats housed in this hall are more than 100 years old, and are brought out for an annual celebration.

The largest archaeological site from the Yayoi period.

A historical western settlement that is known as one of the three most disappointing sights of Japan.

A memorial to the man who brought Western medicine to Japan.

The oldest western-style houses in Japan are centered around the industrialist Thomas Glover.

The home of Mario and his friends

A rare north-facing Ksitigarbha statue enshrined in a passageway off Osaka’s busiest area.

Visit a speakeasy-like indie cinema specializing in 16mm and 35mm films.

This bar is filled with Star Wars merchandise from around the world, all of it unlicensed knockoffs.

The tomb of an infamous chimeric monster whose corpse once washed ashore in Osaka.

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

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

Up on the iconic Tsutenkaku Tower sits an American mascot that became Osaka’s own lucky god.

A Japanese fertility god in the shape of a large phallus.