Places Egao Wants to Go

A rare example of an ancient Japanese hill castle believed to be the fortress of a legendary demon.

The statue's head is one of the few fragments of the original Urakami Cathedral to survive the atomic bomb.

Come for the fish sundae, stay for the collection of Studio Ghibli cat buses.

This quirky little private museum is home to more than a thousand stones, carved by nature, that resemble human faces.

This water goblin statue represents a 19th-century urban legend about a haunted canal that became a Japanese idiom.

A collection of more than 1,000 teddies from nearly any profession.

This giant seated Bhudda of Healing dates to the 1780s.

This little town supplies Japan with most of its calligraphy brushes, still made by hand from animal fur.

When this massive wooden temple ran out of rope, they made one out of devotees' hair.

This little known mountain has claimed four times as many lives as Everest.

A statue of a mischievous raccoon towers over this city park.

This ancient burial site was once thought to be the home of a race distinctive to Ainu folklore.

Watch out for the two-story Godzilla made out of tires.

An ingenious solution to a tricky engineering problem, this spiraling bridge takes drivers for a dizzying spin.

Narrow passes cut out of mountains surround the medieval capital of Japan.

These Japanese ruins have been brought back to life with elaborately recreated buildings.

Legend says the goddess this shrine honors curses any couples that pass by.

Constructed thousands of years ago, these stone circles offer incredible insight into the lives of the people who built them.

Established over a thousand years ago, this family-run teahouse continues to serve skewers of sweet rice cake to this day.

This temple is steeped in local folklore involving a teakettle and a raccoon dog.

A monk-run winery inside a Buddhist temple celebrates Japan's crown grape varietal.

This Japanese Manneken Pis gets new outfits for every occasion.

A 17th-century Shinto shrine that is home to statues of Mickey Mouse and Pikachu.

This incredible mountainside temple is home to intriguing statues of demon-like creatures.