Things to do in Japan, including onsen, food, nature, and traditional towns.
Aso · Takamori · Folk Architecture Takamori Tree House: A Hand-Built Wooden Castle Around a 400-Year-Old Cedar (And Why You Can Only View It From Outside in 2026) I drove out of Aso town on a clear May morning, took…
Updated April 27, 2026 726,200 Singaporeans visited Japan in 2025, up 5% on the previous year and a record. The yen is the cheapest it’s been against the SGD in over a decade, post-Jetstar Asia Scoot has filled the gap…
Minoo Falls (箕面の滝) — a 33m waterfall reachable in 26 minutes from Umeda. Complete 2026 walking guide: 2.7km Takimichi trail, momiji tempura, autumn foliage, current trail closure status, and clear access info.
Osaka · Walking Route · One Day One day in Osaka, on foot: from Namba lanterns to a kushikatsu counter in Shinsekai. Osaka is not pretty. It’s the loud, crooked, soup-stained younger brother of Kyoto. I mean that kindly. If…
Shizuoka · Roadside Station · Field Report The roadside station where locals eat lunch with Mt. Fuji out the window. Michi-no-Eki Fujioyama is not pretty from the outside. It’s a low concrete box wedged against a logistics yard in Shizuoka.…
Inside Yamanakako's Hana no Miyako Park, a wooden-beamed canteen serving ginger pork, negi-tama butadon, and kabocha hōtō from ¥1,150.
A wagyu-focused lunch spot near Lake Kawaguchi. The ¥2,500 Oishi Gozen set — wagyu beef bowl with tempura — is the signature. Mt. Fuji fills the window.
Hiruzen is one of those places Japan seems to have decided, for a season, to try being Switzerland. Rolling pasture, Jersey cows with serious eyelashes, a three-peak ridge in the distance that takes most of a day to walk end-to-end.…
Drive forty minutes north of Okayama on the Yonago Expressway, get off at Hiruzen IC, turn left at a farm stand selling milk, and you come across something you don’t expect to see surrounded by dairy pasture: a three-story wooden…
The first buses reach Kamikochi Bus Terminal around 7:30 AM. By 8:00, Kappa Bridge has its first crowd. But between 5:00 and 7:00, the valley belongs to the people who slept there. I’m Nobutoshi from Hidden Japan Gems — I…