KANTŌ TRIP | JAPAN.GG

Tokyo is the world's largest metropolitan area at roughly 37–38 million people in the greater metro, and it operates with a precision that makes every other megacity feel like a prototype. Shibuya Crossing moves up to 3,000 people per scramble cycle; the surrounding neon — Kabukichō, Golden Gai, Omoide Yokocho — runs all night across thousands of establishments the size of a large closet. Senso-ji in Asakusa has been active since 628 AD, predating the city that grew around it by over a millennium. Akihabara's electric-town density, Harajuku's street fashion pipeline, Shimokitazawa's secondhand record stores — Tokyo rewards time spent not knowing exactly where you're going.

Kamakura was Japan's de facto capital for 150 years and the Great Buddha of Kotoku-in — 13.35 metres of bronze, cast in 1252, sitting in the open air after the hall around it was destroyed by a typhoon in 1334 — is hollow, with the interior open to enter. The 65 temples and shrines spread across the surrounding forested hills can absorb a full day of unplanned walking. Hakone is the most accessible Fuji viewpoint: on a clear morning, Lake Ashi reflects the cone cleanly enough that the photo looks like a composite. The open-air sculpture museum is genuinely world-class and not a consolation prize. Yokohama's Chinatown — Japan's largest — has been continuously operating since 1859.

Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan and then died in 1616. His grandson Iemitsu spent the next two years with somewhere between 15,000 and 17,000 craftsmen building Nikko Toshogu to enshrine him — the resulting complex is UNESCO World Heritage and includes the Yomeimon Gate, a single structure carrying 508 carved decorative elements. The other gate has one deliberately unfinished pillar, inserted upside-down to avoid the perfection that would attract divine jealousy. Kegon Falls drops 97 metres through the same forested gorge that turns scarlet every October. The Ashikaga Flower Park's great wisteria vine is over 150 years old and covers nearly 1,000 square metres of trellis in late April and early May.

Hitachi Seaside Park has become Japan's most-shared seasonal photography destination: in late April and early May, roughly 4.5 million nemophila plants — blue baby-eyes flowers — cover the hillside above the coast in a continuous carpet that reads as a solid blue field in photographs. The same hill turns solid red-orange in October when the kochia grass spheres finish their autumn cycle. Mito's Kairakuen Garden is one of Japan's three great gardens, laid out in 1842 by the domain lord Tokugawa Nariaki, who planted around 3,000 plum trees of over 100 varieties — it opens before every other major flower site in Kantō, starting in mid-February.

Kusatsu Onsen consistently tops Japan's national hot spring rankings and the reason is measurable: the central Yubatake field produces roughly 32,300 litres of water per minute, the highest natural flow of any onsen town in the country. The water is strongly acidic — pH around 2 — which kills bacteria efficiently and is why it has treated skin conditions since at least the Kamakura period. The town at night, steam rising through wooden buildings, is one of Japan's most atmospheric street scenes. Minakami to the north runs whitewater rafting on the Tone River through spring and summer. Ikaho's stone-stepped shopping street, built along a sulphur stream, has been pulling visitors up from Tokyo since the Meiji era.

Kawagoe is 30 minutes by express from Ikebukuro and it contains several streets of intact kurazukuri — the thick-walled, black-plastered merchant storehouses built after the town's 1893 fire destroyed most of the wooden buildings. The new storehouses were built to survive the next fire and they did; the street looks today roughly like it did in the late Meiji era. The bell tower at the district's centre has been ringing every morning since 1624 with only a few interruptions. Chichibu in the prefecture's west draws crowds for the shibazakura moss-pink carpet around Mt. Fuji's base area in spring, and Chichibu Yomatsuri — held in December — is one of Japan's three great float festivals, complete with fireworks fired into the night sky at midnight.

Most visitors to Chiba are in transit to Narita Airport and never look up. Naritasan Shinshoji — a 10-minute walk from the airport rail station — is one of Japan's most visited temples with around 12 million visitors per year; the approach street, Omotesando, has been lined with unagi (freshwater eel) restaurants since the Edo period, when pilgrims needed fuel for the walk. On the Boso Peninsula, Nokogiriyama — Saw Mountain — has a cliff-face that was quarried for centuries to build Edo, leaving behind a landscape of terraced rock and a 31-metre seated Buddha carved directly into the hillside. The Choshi coast on the Pacific side produces soy sauce and dried sardines that supply most of Tokyo's kitchen, and the lighthouse at the eastern tip looks out over open Pacific, the horizon unbroken in every direction.