Kagoshima is Kyushu’s southernmost, major city and the capital of Kagoshima Prefecture. The city is often compared with its Italian sister city Naples due to a similarly mild climate, palm tree lined streets, relatively hot tempered inhabitants and Sakurajima, Kagoshima’s Vesuvius.
Category: Japan Travel
Mount Aso (???, Aso-san) is an active volcano in the center of Kyushu. Its ancient caldera ranks among the world’s largest, with a diameter of up to 25 kilometers and a circumference of over 100 kilometers.
Minamata City in southern Kumamoto Prefecture gained worldwide fame in the 1950s and 1960s through a mercury poisoning disaster, caused by a local factory’s discharge of poisonous wastewater into Minamata Bay.
The capital of Kumamoto Prefecture, Kumamoto is a major city on Kyushu’s west coast with a population of 650,000. The city is most famous for its castle, which is one of Japan’s largest.
In 2004, Ueno City and five surrounding towns and villages were merged into a new city called Iga City. Iga is the name of the former province, which covered part of today’s Mie Prefecture. Ueno is commonly referred to as Iga Ueno in order to avoid confusion with an identically named city district in Tokyo.
The Shima Peninsula is home to Japan’s most sacred Shinto shrines, the Ise Shrines, and is a popular leisure resort area among the urban population of Nagoya and Osaka. Attractions besides the Ise Shrines include several theme parks and pearl cultivation along the peninsula’s rugged coast.
Yoshinoyama (Mount Yoshino) in Yoshino Town, Nara Prefecture, is Japan’s most famous cherry blossom spot. Besides an estimated 30,000 cherry trees, the area also offers a rich history and several temples and shrines.
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Amanohashidate Sightseeing Guide
Amanohashidate, roughly meaning “bridge in the heaven”, is a 3.6 kilometer long, pine tree covered sand bar, spanning across Miyazu Bay on the Tango Peninsula, northern Kyoto Prefecture. It is ranked as one of Japan’s three most scenic views (nihon sankei).
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Nikko Sightseeing Guide
Nikko is a small city at the entrance to Nikko National Park. It is most famous for the Toshogu, Japan’s most lavishly decorated shrine complex and mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate.
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Oirase Stream Aomori
The Oirase Stream is a picturesque mountain stream which starts at Nenokuchi, a small town at the shores of Towadako Lake and flows down the narrow and densely wooded Oirase Valley. A hiking trail leads along the most scenic, upper passage of the stream from Ishigedo to Nenokuchi (about 10 km).