Kurobera is the furthest a person can go from the city of Tokyo. “It is a place that has never seen a convenience store, a place that cell phones don’t work. People work in the fields all day and practice an ancient form of the Noh at night. Family names: Fujiwara, Miahara, date back to the Heike, over 800 years. Recent archeological digs show that people have lived here since the Jyomon.
Now there are less then 10 residents year round. The youngest, 71, you can see dancing in this video.”

In Enoshima, Kamakura, despite the big buddhist influences Shinto is very much a big part of the town’s culture and beliefs. This is a video of a matsuri that happened where it was part of pleasing the gods procession

During Mount Hakone’s last eruption comes Owakudani, a 3000 year old crater that is filled with hot springs and hot rivers.The sulfurous fumes is a trademark of the place and the experience can be liken to walking in a hot bowl of soup.

It is definitely a place to cehck of you if you’re ever at Hakone.

How to get to and around Hakone?

They have Chinatown in Japan!!

It is my wish to visit all the chinatown in the world. And then, I am going do a postmortem on the level of dirtiness in each city’s chinatown. Btw, that videoclip is really well done. :)

Established 1872, the Tokyo National Museum (東京国立博物館, Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan?), or TNM, is the oldest and largest museum in Japan. The museum collects, houses, and preserves a comprehensive collection of art works and archaeological objects of Asia, focusing on Japan. The museum holds over 110,000 objects, which includes 87 Japanese National Treasure holdings and 610 Important Cultural Property holdings (as of July, 2005). The museum also conducts research and organizes educational events related to its collection.

The museum is located inside Ueno Park in Taito, Tokyo. The facilities consist of the Honkan (本館, Japanese Gallery), Tōyōkan (東洋館, Asian Gallery), Hyōkeikan (表慶館), Heiseikan (平成館), Hōryū-ji Hōmotsukan (法隆寺宝物館, the Gallery of Hōryū-ji Treasures), as well as Shiryōkan (資料館, the Research and Information Center) and other facilities. There are restaurants and shops within the museum’s premises, as well as outdoor exhibitions and a garden where visitors can enjoy seasonal views.

The museum’s collections focus on ancient Japanese art and Asian art along the Silk Road. There is also a large collection of Greco-Buddhist art.

All information is provided in Japanese, Chinese, English, French, German, Korean, and Spanish.

How to get there?

(JR Line) 10 minutes from Ueno or Uguisudani Station
(Ginza or Hibiya Tokyo Metro Line) 15 minutes from Ueno Station
(Chiyoda Tokyo Metro Line) 15 minutes from Nezu Station
(Keisei Line) 15 minutes from Keisei Ueno Station

Price: 600Yen for adult, 300Yen for University students, free for High/Junior High/Elementary School Students and under.

Official Website

Kamakura’s defining feature is, today as in the past, the presence of the great Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū Shinto shrine at its center. An unusual feature of the shrine is its 1.8 km sandō (参道, sandō?) (approach), which runs all the way to the the ocean in Yuigahama and doubles as Wakamiya Ōji Avenue, the city’s main street. Built by Minamoto no Yoritomo as an imitation of Kyoto’s Suzaku Ōji (朱雀大路, Suzaku Ōji?), Wakamiya Ōji used to be much wider, delimited on both sides by a 3 m deep canal and flanked by pine trees (see the Edo period print).

How to get there?
The East Japan Railway Company’s Yokosuka Line has three stations within the city. Ōfuna Station is the northernmost. Next is Kita-Kamakura Station. In the center of the city is Kamakura Station, the central railway station in the city.

Kamakura Station is the terminal for the Enoshima Electric Railway. This narrow-gauge railway runs westward to Fujisawa, and part of its route runs parallel to the seashore. After leaving Kamakura Station, trains make eight more station stops in the city. One of them is Hase Station, closest to Hase-dera and Kōtoku-in.

Okay, if you’re new in Japan, you might want to consider having someone take you around in a customized tour specifically for newbies. Tokyo can be an especially daunting place since it has a life of its own and English speakers may find it hard to even find the bathroom since mostly things are written in Japanese. So the Tokyo Trend Tours offers scouts who will take you around and help integrate you into the Japanese culture.

Among the things they will cover are:

* Fashion and youth culture
* Retail and shopping – from discount stores to showrooms to the flagship experience
* New products and concepts – from FMCG to luxury
* Network technology and mobile phones
* Marketing and advertising

I am not sure how much it is, I just thought it would be a great heads up for you guys who are interested in getting to know Tokyo a little better than your 100yen shops. Check out: Tokyo Trend Tours

Mount Mitake (御岳山, Mitakesan?) is a mountain in Tokyo, Japan. It stands 929 meters tall. On the mountain is a Shinto shrine.

It is one of the many highlights of the Chichibu Tama Kai National Park, which covers more than 1,250 square kilometers of forested mountains, hills, gorges and some rural towns in the prefectures of Yamanashi, Saitama, Nagano and Tokyo.

The trip from Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station to Mitake Station on the Ōme Line takes about 95 minutes. A cable car leads to the village at its top.

It is worth it to go to Mount Mitake for a weekend getaway because it is touted to be one of those “hidden gems” in Japan where culture and history still prevails. :)

Kaikōzan Jishōin Hase-dera (海光山慈照院長谷寺, Kaikōzan Jishōin Hase-dera?) is one of the great Buddhist temples in the city of Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, famous for housing a massive wooden statue of Kannon. The temple is the fourth of the 33 stations of the Bandō Sanjūsankasho pilgrimage circuit dedicated to the Goddess.

The statue is the largest wooden statue in Japan, standing at 9.18 m tall, and is made from camphor wood and gilded in gold. It has 11 heads, each of which represents a different phase in the search for enlightenment. In medieval Japanese Buddhism, a common iconography depicted Kannon with eleven hands and often with a thousand arms.

The statue is the largest wooden statue in Japan, standing at 9.18 m tall, and is made from camphor wood and gilded in gold. It has 11 heads, each of which represents a different phase in the search for enlightenment. In medieval Japanese Buddhism, a common iconography depicted Kannon with eleven hands and often with a thousand arms.

According to legend, the statue is one of two images of Kannon carved by a monk named Tokudō in 721. The camphor tree was so large, according to legend, that he decided that he could carve two statues with it. One was enshrined in the Hasedera in the city of Nara, Yamato Province, while the other was set adrift in the sea to find the place that it had a karmic connection with. It washed ashore on Nagai Beach on the Miura Peninsula near Kamakura in the year 736. The statue was immediately brought to Kamakura where a temple was built to honor it.

The temple originally belonged to the Tendai sect of Buddhism, but eventually became an independent temple of Jodo Shu sect.

The temple also commands an impressive view over Kamakura’s bay and is famous for its hydrangeas which bloom along the Hydrangea Path in June and July. The temple is built on two levels, as well as an underground cave. The cave, called benten kutsu cave, contains a long winding tunnel, with a low ceiling, and various statues and devotionals to Benzaiten, the sea goddess and the only female of the Seven Lucky Gods in Japanese mythology.

Kaikozan Hase-dera is also part of the Kamakura pilgrimage circuit, also consisting of 33 sites, and is station 4 of the 33 temples of the Kanto Pilgrimage.

To learn more about the temple visit Hasedera.jp

Ikaho Onsen is one of the three famous hot springs in Shibukawa, along side with Kusatsu and Shima. It’s thermal waters are characterized by the high concentration of Iron in its waters, which makes it orange in color. It’s tranquil and less bustling environment makes this a perfect stopover for a relaxing dip in its natural thermal waters.

Check out more about Ikaho Onsen.