In the extreme northeast of Honshu, the Shimokita peninsula juts like an axe head into the Pacific. Not exactly at the heart of things, the peninsula is home to one of Japan’s most sacred, and unsettling, pilgrimage sites. More than eleven centuries ago a monk named Ennin, studying Buddhism in Chin...

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...