Places dddmiller Wants to Go

The original "capsule building" is a masterpiece of Metabolist architecture.

Hot springs monkey spa in the middle of Hell's Valley.

A King Kong-like gorilla hangs from the top of this commercial building in Tokyo.

A 14th-century European chapel sticks out of the facade of a Japanese hotel.

This sprawling scenic burial ground is the final resting place of Japan's last shogun.

This adorable birdlike police box is designed based on a play on words.

After being lost for decades, this striking mural depicting the atomic bomb covers the wall of a busy Tokyo metro station.

"Bug Bug" Land, a natural park for beetle watching, still hasn't fully recovered from Fukushima's nuclear disaster.

This beautiful Japanese garden is a memorial to the samurai who literally wrote the book on business as martial art.

Transport yourself to the 1980s era of video games at this themed restaurant and bar.

A statue erected on an infamous cliff where young boys would hold dangerous "pee offs" to prove their mettle.

Coast along one of Japan’s mountain railways for coveted views of magnificent hydrangeas.

The largest of the Fuji Five Lakes is home to an impressive swan population—some real, some with paddles, and one with an observation deck.

The ruin of a Japanese love hotel almost completely overgrown with brambles.

Giant animal sculptures are created with the rice straw leftover from the fall harvest each year.

Burial mound for the ears and noses of thousands of mutilated Korean soldiers.

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

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

A shrine contains nearly 200 statues of the Buddhist deity Jizo, dressed in bibs by parents who have lost a child.

The divine septet of Japanese fortune gods are rendered in 1,000-year-old wood at this peaceful site.

An oddly touching memorial to a little-remembered nuclear tragedy.

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

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

This ruined Japanese stripclub sits half burnt to the ground.