"Singing sands" and the world's largest hourglass reside near Japan's Kotogahama beach.

A Japanese train station built around a 700-year-old camphor tree.

An abandoned giant glass dome sits in the bay in “the Venice of the East.”

This beautiful Japanese garden is a memorial to the samurai who literally wrote the book on business as martial art.

The giant figure on the back of this turtle-shaped temple actually hides a memorial pendulum.

The Yonaguni Monument, a natural formation or the Japanese Atlantis?

A massive wintry wall of snow up to 66 feet tall flanks a highway through Japan's mountains.

A small island with no monkeys but plenty of military ruins.

This high-design church is made up of two dizzying spirals meant to evoke the weaving together of marriage.

The world's shortest escalator doesn't seem to have any reason to exist other than to hold a world record.

Roots and stumps that lay inundated for two millennia are on display in Japan's city of three mysteries.

With over 12,000 different species of plants, this botanical garden is Japan's oldest and most diverse.

The largest of the Fuji Five Lakes is home to an impressive swan population—some real, some with paddles, and one with an observation deck.

A strange tribute to all the fallen souls of war.

Thirty architectural gems from the 19th- and early 20th-century Tokyo were restored and relocated to this space.

This mountain's identity is stuck somewhere between a nightmare and a scenic tourist attraction.

A sculpture that resurrected the only tree standing following the devastating 2011 tsunami.

Burial mound for the ears and noses of thousands of mutilated Korean soldiers.

This giant bronze Buddha, the third largest in Japan, is the last in an ill-fated series of statues.

Founded over a thousand years ago, this shrine is said to be built on the site of a warlord's harem prison.

These Japanese gardens are blankets of light for dark winter nights.

Giant sand sculptures of famous people and places are on display near the Tottori sand dunes.

The divine septet of Japanese fortune gods are rendered in 1,000 year old wood at this peaceful site.

A remarkable lava formation encloses a line of Buddhist statues that can't be accurately counted, according to local mythology.