Akanko Ainu Kotan: A Living Street Still Writing Its Own Story — Lake Akan, Hokkaido
By six in the evening, the slope through Akanko Ainu Kotan sounds like a village finishing its workday, not starting […]
Nakatsu Gorge: The Seven Lucky Gods a Cabinet Policy Built — Niyodogawa, Kochi
At the trailhead, mist off the Nakatsu River carries the smell of wet stone and cedar, and a shimenawa rope
Tohoku
Sakegawa Village: The Totoro Tree Is Just the Beginning — Yamagata
There’s a cedar in Sakegawa Village that stands about twenty metres tall with a trunk over six metres around, forked
Kitanada Station: Where Shimonada’s Silence Still Lives — Ehime
The train pulls away, and for a few seconds the platform at Kitanada Station is loud with its own absence
Akiu Otaki Falls: The Road That Keeps Going After the Waterfall — Sendai, Miyagi
The turn onto Route 131 is easy to miss if you’re following the navigation app, which wants you back on
Onogawa Onsen: The Walkable Hot Spring Town Yamagata Doesn’t Advertise — Yonezawa
The candle inside the snow hut throws an orange light that barely reaches past its own walls, so from the
Beyond Cape Ashizuri’s Postcard Spots: Ryugu Shrine and the Stones of Matsuo — Kochi
There’s a small torii off Route 27, easy to drive past if you’re not watching for it, and past it
Tohoku
Kurate Chaya: The Teahouse That Has Watched Travelers Cross Nakayama Pass for 150 Years — Fukushima
Route 49 climbs out of Koriyama toward Lake Inawashiro in long, patient curves, the kind of road where you settle
Tohoku
Bikki-ishi: Not the Restaurant — The Mountain and the Myth Behind Its Name, Yonezawa
The rock is easy to miss from below, and then all at once it isn’t. You come up through a
Tohoku
Ubayu Onsen: The Secret Hot Spring Yamagata Has Been Guarding for Nearly 500 Years — Yonezawa
The bridge sways underfoot, and somewhere below it in the dusk a stream is making more noise than its size