The Sapporo Okurayama Ski Jump was used as the Large Hill event stage in the 1972 Sapporo Winter Olympics. There had been a ski jump here since 1931, when a smaller facility was built with help from Crown Prince Yasuhito, the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito. For the Olympics, the ski jump was en...
The story of Mikimoto Island is really the story of Mikimoto Kokichi, who pioneered the production of cultured pearls. Born the eldest son of an udon noodle maker in the Shima Peninsula’s town of Toba, Mikimoto developed a childhood passion for pearls after seeing the famous pearl diving “Pearl Mai...
Another of Kanagawa’s attractions is the Enoshima Aquarium, certain to be a hit with anyone interested in marine biology. The Big Sagami Bay Tank recreates the ecology of nearby Sagami Bay, including a school of over 8,000 sardines that swim together in tight, spiraling formation. The Jellyfish Fa...
The little town of Koga in southern Shiga ken is famous for being one of the birthplaces of the ninja, Japan’s legendary medieval spy assassins. Today, the Koga Ninja Village welcomes visitors who are interested in the history and arts of the ninja.
Although there’s more than a whiff of kitsch a...
The Yokohama Raumen Museum is another food theme park, this one devoted to one of Japan’s true obsessions, the now world-famous noodle soup called ramen. The museum’s odd spelling of ramen is intentional, an old fashioned pronunciation that sounds nostalgic to Japanese visitors.
The museum docu...
Right next to the Grand Shrine at Izumo, the Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo makes an excellent addition to a visit to the shrine. Using movies, temporary exhibitions, replicas of the Grand Shrine at various periods of its long history and material on daily life in Izumo past and present, the museu...
14 kilometers east of Sapporo’s downtown, the Historical Village of Hokkaido is one of the city’s most interesting attractions. The village preserves about 60 stone and wooden buildings from the Hokkaido’s early days, scattered across 133 acres. And these aren’t just small cabins and a few post offi...
Anyone with even a passing interest in Art Nouveau or Art Deco may want to stop by one of Hakone’s newest museums, dedicated entirely to the work of the French jeweler and glass artist Ren Lalique, a leading figure of both styles.
Over the course of his celebrated career, Lalique made jewelry for...
The Peace Memorial Park and Museum are a part of any trip to Hiroshima, and the city's most widely recognized symbol is the Atomic Bomb Dome. It's a sobering sight, as is the rubble field around its perimeter, a reminder of what six square kilometers of downtown looked like following the blast. The ...
If limited time or other constraints on your itinerary will keep you from visiting Shirakawa-go, Takayama’s Hida Folk Village offers an admirable alternative.
Just twenty minutes walk from the JR Station (shuttle buses are also available), this excellent open air museum preserves more than thirty ...
At the engaging Omoide Taiken Kan (Experience Museum) just west of downtown Takayama, visitors can make their own souvenirs, from candles to senbei rice crackers and sarubobo, a famous local doll used as a charm.
Kawasaki’s Toshiba Science Museum was launched, in part, to combat waning interest in the natural sciences among children. It does a pretty good job of this, overall, not only through its exhibits but also through various events and educational outreach and awards programs for youth. As a corporat...
The architecture, gardens and exhibits of the world famous Adachi Art Museum offer an aesthetic banquet to visitors. The building itself draws you on past a superb collection of modern Japanese art, including about 130 pieces by the Yokoyama Taikan, a pioneer in the Nihonga movement which sought to...
At its height, the Edo-era government maintained regional offices at sixty locations around Japan. In these impressive, palatial structures, bureaucrats dispatched from Edo extended the power of the Tokugawa Shogunate directly into the heart of the nation’s far-flung reaches.
The Takayama Jinya, o...
The Peace Memorial Museum’s main purpose is to sustain the memory of the events of August 6th, 1945. In meeting that purpose, it features exhibits educating visitors about the buildup to the war and the development of nuclear weapons, the city both before and in the days following the atomic bombing...
