My Top 100 Places in Japan

By P.J. Leonard

“Endless Discovery”.
That’s the slogan of Japan’s tourism campaign. And I’ll be darned if it’s not an excellent slogan, possibly even more so than the creator ever intended it to be.

Because if there is just one word that I can use to describe Japan, it is deep. This slender archipelago of the Far East houses an incredibly dense mosaic of urban and mountainous, ancient and cutting-edge, calm and raucous, not just in the macro but in the micro. Every major tourist spot resides within an ecosystem of lesser-known points of interest. Every neighbourhood holds little quirks and treasures that not even long-term residents have seen.

And yet, it goes even deeper than that. They say that a man never steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. Think that the discovery ends after a decade-plus of life in Japan? Far from it. It truly is endless. Places reveal new layers upon new visits, either from your own discovery or from the changes you have been through as a person, and life being as it is, even the most mundane places can come to cradle precious memories that make it stand up to even the greatest wonders in one’s eyes.

I am far from done with Japan, and will almost certainly release an updated version of this book in the future. But after 10 years of life here, now is a good time to look back at my Top 100 Places in Japan. All of those places that I have journeyed to, of course, but also the incidental ones: places that no tourist has a need to even know exists, let alone visit, but have carved their way into my life and shaped who I am today, for various reasons. This list, then, is more than simply places, but capsules of experiences, moments in time matter to me. I’m excited to share these places and their story with you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: P.J. Leonard
• Release date: Oct 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005420369

P.J. Leonard

P.J. Leonard grew up in Worcester, UK. He moved to Japan in 2010 and has lived there ever since, enjoying the culture, the hiking, and the traditional Japanese sport of tussling for the free seat on the train every morning at rush hour.He first found a love for writing aged nine, when he took what was meant to be a one-page short story assignment and turned it into a 10-page epic, much to the chagrin of his teachers. He's been writing ever since.

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P.J. Leonard

My Top 100 Places in Japan

Copyright 2021 P.J. Leonard

Published by P.J. Leonard at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard

work of this author.

About the Author

P.J. Leonard was born in the U.K. and moved to Japan in 2010, where he has resided ever since. He lives with his wife and children in a city on the outskirts of Tokyo.

He writes both fiction and non-fiction, short stories and full novels. More information of his work can be found on his blog, https://pjlbooks.wordpress.com/.

About this Book

This book is an expanded version of a project I undertook from 2020 to 2021, where it was originally presented as 100 blog posts spread across a year. These posts can be found on my website, https://pjlbooks.wordpress.com/, but also includes a large amount of additions, corrections and new content. That being said, if you like what you read here, I do recommend visiting me on my website as I am constantly adding stuff like this, and you can keep up to date on my latest stuff there too.

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She was born in the Spring.

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And various short stories…

Foreword

Endless Discovery.

That’s the slogan of Japan’s tourism campaign. And I’ll be darned if it’s not an excellent slogan, possibly even more so than the creator ever intended it to be.

Because if there is just one word that I can use to describe Japan, it is deep. This slender archipelago of the Far East houses an incredibly dense mosaic of urban and mountainous, ancient and cutting-edge, calm and raucous, not just in the macro but in the micro. Every major tourist spot resides within an ecosystem of lesser-known points of interest. Every neighbourhood holds little quirks and treasures that not even long-term residents have seen.

And yet, it goes even deeper than that. They say that a man never steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. Think that the discovery ends after a decade-plus of life in Japan? Far from it. It truly is endless. Places reveal new layers upon new visits, either from your own discovery or from the changes you have been through as a person, and life being as it is, even the most mundane places can come to cradle precious memories that make it stand up to even the greatest wonders in one’s eyes.

I am far from done with Japan, and will almost certainly release an updated version of this book in the future. But after 10 years of life here, now is a good time to look back at my Top 100 Places in Japan. All of those places that I have journeyed to, of course, but also the incidental ones: places that no tourist has a need to even know exists, let alone visit, but have carved their way into my life and shaped who I am today, for various reasons. This list, then, is more than simply places, but capsules of experiences, moments in time matter to me. I’m excited to share these places and their story with you!

But, before we get started, a few ground rules:

This list is massively subjective.

Not the title of this book. Specifically, the apostrophe and S after my name. Perhaps this goes without saying, but this is not an objective, definitive list of the best places in Japan based on cold hard facts. If I were to make that list, it would look highly different from this one. No, this Top 100 is all my personal opinion. Speaking of which…

It’s not about the best places.

And I wouldn’t even say these are the best places: my time in Japan has borne many special and important memories, and locations in which these cornerstones of my life are a key point to that, even if the place that they happened in is run-of-the-mill. Everyone has those locales which, to the casual onlooker, are pretty mundane but are precious to someone else because it evokes the memory of something special. So there will be a lot of odd choices on here, places that I wouldn’t recommend to a tourist in a million years, but are a part of who I am. When these places come up, I will be all too happy to explain my story.

All of these places are great.

Think 100th best sounds lame? Not here it isn’t. Believe me, a lot of stuff didn’t make the cut: when planning this project I had to cut this list down from over 200 places, and a fair few of them are big name places (I won’t mention them yet, no spoilers!). I hope I’ve been clear that this list is massively subjective and just my personal selection, but I cannot stress enough that even those at the low end of this list are wonderful…to me, at least.

This is not a definitive list.

I still live in Japan, and will continue to be here for quite a while longer. For as long as I am in Japan, this list will always be a work-in-progress. Perhaps one day, when my journey in this country comes to an end, I will sit down and make my definitive list, but until then the contents and order of this are in a state of flux. Don’t get me wrong: I have agonized over the order of this list for a good while, and I am satisfied with it. But as this is based on my own life and experiences continue here, some places may grow in importance while others fade. For now, however, this serves as a solid snapshot of where my feelings stand at this moment.

Make sense? All good? Right then. Let’s get started…

100th: Sarugakyo (猿ヶ京)

When I first moved to Japan, I was really stoked to dive into the lifestyle and culture that I’d gotten a mere taste of from my holiday here three years prior. One thing that I was dreading, however, was the onsen (hot spring baths). Onsen are a part of the fabric of social life in Japan, like pubs in the UK or kangaroo-wrestling ranches in Australia. I knew I was going to come into collision with one eventually, but the idea of getting naked and sharing a bath with strangers or, worse, friends, terrified me. Once I did it, though, I was hooked. Now, there is nothing I like more than stripping down to my birthday suit and gently boiling myself.

Was Sarugakyo my first onsen experience? No (that would be in Nagano), but I’d say it was my first proper weekend getaway, all-in-one onsen and hotel package. The bus picked my wife and I up from near our home and whisked us away to this mini-resort clustered at the far end of a mountain-locked lake.

And I use the term mini very generously. Because while the onsen hotel itself was great and the open-air baths gave a commanding view of the lake below (even better at night), the town of Sarugakyo itself is almost non-existent. There was perhaps one shop, one restaurant, and that was it. Luckily the thick blanket of snow provided its own entertainment and photo opportunities.

But my abiding memory of this place has to be at night. Somehow, I’d managed to enter the baths after closing hours one evening. The lights on the outdoor bath were switched off, and I was alone in the steaming waters, looking up at a sky thick with stars that shimmered on the lake below. Magical. And even better, I hadn’t been locked out!

99th: Aizu Wakamatsu (会津若松)

It’s hard to believe, but there was a brief time when Japan in 2011 was normal. Before the devastating earthquake in March, a group of friends and I were planning a trip in February of that year, and after having spent a year in Japan we were keen to step off the beaten track a bit and see something different. That’s how we found Aizu-Wakamatsu, a sizable city in inland Fukushima prefecture (yes, that Fukushima), which seemed to have a good mix of onsen, castle and points of interest.

And all sprinkled in a blanket of snow. Again, I think the weather and simply being with friends made half the entertainment – there is a reason why Aizu isn’t on any major to-do lists – but regardless there were some great memories to be had. The suspiciously quiet ramen restaurant with a TV that looked at least as old as the owner (extremely), the castle so pristine white it looked practically invisible against the snow and clouds, and of course the onsen. This particular hot spring clung to the jagged walls of a ravine, overlooking a river far below. There was what looked like a giant bucket, big enough for only one person, that you could sink into and let the flakes of snow flutter in and melt on contact with the water or your skin. Pure magic.

But the highlight was definitely Mount Iimori, a fascinating labyrinth of ancient gravestones and a wooden Buddhist pagoda that you can still enter and climb. It’s a very photogenic place, particularly the spiral tower, and rounded off what was a pleasant trip…before the whole world seemed to fall apart a month later, not far from where we had been.

98th: Noto Peninsula (能登半島)

Have you ever looked at that little hooked peninsula on the north coast of Japan’s main island and wondered what’s there? What’s that? You don’t wonder? Well, you should. Because within this little nook of Japan, abundant with foliage and wildlife, you will find one of Japan’s most violent events. Literally. It’s called the Abare Matsuri (violence festival) for a reason.

I kid you not. A sleepy fishing village by the name of Ushitsu goes quietly about its business 364 days of the year, except for one night when the locals give in to their primal urges and decide to smash, burn and – worst of all – shout in public. See, most local festivals are dedicated to the veneration of their local kami, a God of sorts, which is typically enshrined in a, err, shrine. But on festival day, the kami is moved into a mikoshi, basically a portable shrine, symbolically offered alcohol and paraded around town on the shoulders of assigned carriers so the kami may be exposed to the admiring locals who are also plied on alcohol.

Not so in Ushitsu. Long story short, every kami associated with a local shrine has a personality of sorts, and local Japanese festivals are essentially held in their honour and appeasement, so each one has its own flavour. Ushitsu is especially unique in that the god they appease, Susano, is one that revels and approves of displays of strength and violence – even against himself. So the festival is an excuse to put this masochistic spirit through a gauntlet of abuse by wrecking the hell out of the mikoshi. It’s thrown to the street, spun around, tossed in the river, and set on fire. Oh, and there’s lots of alcohol. That bit stays the same.

This festival is not for the faint of heart, but makes for an incredibly visceral experience. Though, oddly, I found it much less stressful than your average, civilised festival which is usually packed to the gills with crowds, whereas the Noto Peninsula is relatively out of the way and difficult to access. So you usually have ample leg room to enjoy the violence.

97th: Niiza (新座)

Niiza is one of those pleasant surprises where you go in with modest expectations and then the place goes and exceeds them all.

Let me set the scene for you: its autumn 2018, and the wife and I are looking for new places to visit for autumn-leaf viewing, ideally close to home. That’s when we discover Niiza, not too far from where we live (about 30 minutes by train), home to Heirinji Temple. From the pictures we saw online it looked pleasant enough. But when we arrived, we were stunned to find this verdant, ancient temple set amidst a vast forest. Wooden structures tucked between trees draped in leaves the colour of a sunset. It was also Shichi-go-san, the day kids aged three, five and seven get dressed up in kimonos and head to such a temple, so it really was like walking around a watercolour painting of a lost Japan.

And you know what? The urban area around the rest of Niiza wasn’t half bad either. There were decent shops and restaurants, rounding out a thoroughly delightful day trip. Niiza and Heirinji Temple are prime examples of the density of delights you can find in Japan: it will never appear on any list of must-sees for tourists, and on a map it can seem unassuming. But for anyone willing to step out and explore, there is almost always a reward awaiting you.

96th: Nishi-Arai (西新井)

It’s best to think of Tokyo not as one big city but rather pockets of neighbourhoods all linked together like a jigsaw puzzle. Some of these neighbourhoods are big and bustling enough to be cities unto themselves (like Shinjuku or Shibuya), while some are quiet residential suburbs and bedtowns. And then you have these delightful pockets that are formed around a temple and shrine, and walking around it is like stepping back in time. Nishi Arai is one such neighbourhood.

Tucked away in the Adachi Ward in the northern edge of Tokyo, when you first alight from the train、 Nishi Arai doesn’t look like much. A stack of scruffy shops lean in over narrow alleyways, and dull apartment blocks tower in the distance. Take a walk, however, and within five minutes you come to a charming street of traditional shops and cafes, all leading up to the temple itself. It’s as if somebody carved out a little segment of Kyoto and plonked it there. Yet, the vibe is very different: whereas Kyoto has an air of exclusivity and refinement and is usually rammed with tourists, Nishi Arai has no such airs or graces: North Tokyo is typically known for being the more down-to-earth and relaxed corner of the capital city.

A case in point: for lunch, we found a rundown old ramen restaurant. On the outside it looked just about ready to be abandoned, but on the inside the staff and customers chatted away like old friends. Now, when I normally set foot in this