Places Seeking the Edge Wants to Go

A solid steel plane designed to catch fire over and over again.

This old KLM airplane cut into three parts was transformed into an eclectic airport gift shop.

At this barrel organ museum, history and live concert keep Dutch street organ culture alive.

An ingenious Dutch land art project uses grass ridges to cut airport noise pollution in half.

This plaque marks the former home of one of the first women physicians in the Netherlands.

This natural "sea of stones" was once used by the Romans as a quarry.

This village is home to the largest existing settlement of the Ainu, the Indigenous people of Japan.

A steaming, boiling hellscape sources Hokkaido's thermal baths.

Thousands of foxes are said to gather and parade across the neighborhood of Ōji on New Year’s Eve.

A railway station takeout shop sells boxed meals in containers shaped like trains and snowmen that hold the country’s abundant regional delicacies.

The buildings are among the few Frank Lloyd Wright structures still standing in Japan.

A hole-in-the-wall antiquities museum in one of Tokyo's most popular megamalls.

Sidle into a side alley for a taste of sumo wrestlers' traditional hot-pot soup, in a tiny restaurant founded by a former competitor.

This tiny museum hidden above a restaurant houses thousands of modern and traditional kites.

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

Dedicated to the armor and weapons used by the legendary Japanese warriors.

A 20-meter (65-foot) robot towers over Tokyo Bay.

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

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

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

The groundbreaking Japanese shrine maiden who invented the art of kabuki.

This brothel-turned-restaurant features plenty of surprises and elaborate, extravagant architecture.

A Japanese train station built around a 700-year-old camphor tree.

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