An LED art installation composed of 600 poles wrapped in kimono fabric.

Devoted Buddhists can earn enlightenment in the next life by crawling through this symbolic nostril.

This massive wooden building contains a giant Buddha, healing pillars, and tame deer wandering the grounds.

A raised Japanese building has preserved 8th-century artifacts for more than a millennium, earning this log cabin a reputation as the "world's oldest museum."

This whimsical garbage disposal facility receives around 12,000 accidental tourists each year.

Visitors to this temple are greeted by a massive collection of wooden dolls said to bring good fortune.

An unlikely hit, this museum is dedicated to the inventor of instant ramen and cup noodles.

Try maple leaf tempura at the trailside shop that brought it back from oblivion.

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

Near the mouth of the Yodo River, this museum offers visitors six floors of hands-on learning about Osaka's raw sewage.

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

Surreal giant face-pillars welcome visitors from across the globe to this hotel.

Every spring, this walkway outside the Japan Mint turns into a cherry blossom tunnel.

A grand Buddhist temple with Indian influences.

This shrine, built to protect against destructive waves, is home to two monumental lion heads.

This Japanese Manneken Pis gets new outfits for every occasion.

Rows of stone statues are dressed up to mourn children that are lost before birth.

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

This Buddhist temple is home to the graves of the Japanese national legends, the 47 Ronin.

Japan's first train station is also the site of Godzilla's first destructive visit to the nation.

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

A site where ten to twenty thousand Edo-era prisoners were put to death.