Listed in the order we finished writing them, not the order we went.
In Yanagawa, Fukuoka Prefecture, you can tour the old castle-town moats by boat. The twist: when the boat passes under a bridge, the boatman steps off and vanishes. The boat slips under without him, then he leaps back aboard from the bridge above and pushes off again.
Sado Island is working hard to breed the toki, Japan's national bird. At Toki no Mori Park, I watched the ibis busily on the move.
On Sado Island, after the Sado Gold Mine, now a World Heritage Site, I stayed at a so-called sushi minshuku. A lavish crab, two meals, a night: just over ¥10,000. The futons are a bit thin, but dinner is superb.
A stroll through Shukunegi on Sado Island, a former kitamaebune port where wealthy ship captains once lived, and their grand wooden houses still stand.
I rode a tub boat in Shukunegi village on Sado Island. Called hangiri, after the halved barrel it's made from, it moves on one oar swung side to side rather than back and forth, and is unique to Sado in Japan.
Niigata's Sado Island, known for tub boats and the wooden hamlet of Shukunegi: a ferry from Niigata Port, a rental car, and a night at Isaburo, a traditional wooden house over 100 years old.
A walk through Ouchi-juku, Fukushima: an Edo-era post town of thatched roofs and old Japan, famous for negi soba eaten using a leek instead of chopsticks.
From Kitakata to Aizuwakamatsu: retro Nanokamachi, the homes of a former lord's retainers, and the room where women and children took their own lives in defeat. Far from today's values, yet their resolve struck me as remarkable.
Sightseeing in Kitakata, Fukushima Prefecture: morning ramen at Kikusui, then a visit to a sake brewery to enjoy some sake tasting.
Down from Mt. Yudono, I head to the shukubo Tamonkan. After a shojin ryori dinner, I go out after dark to see the five-story pagoda lit up.
Down from Dewa Sanzan Shrine, a meal at a café by the gate, then Mt. Yudono, whose sacred summit has one rule: never tell what you saw or heard.
After seeing the five-story pagoda on Mt. Haguro, I climbed toward Dewa Sanzan Shrine. Some 2,000 steps later, I made it.
I headed to Mt. Haguro in Yamagata Prefecture, famous for its five-story pagoda in the forest, and started up the trail to Dewa Sanzan Shrine. Partway up, I stopped to look at the pagoda. Among the trees, it had a presence no other pagoda has.
A trip to Mt. Haguro, a site of mountain worship in Yamagata's Shonai region: a night at Daishinbo, a yamabushi-run shukubo in Dewa Sanzan Shrine's lodging district, a morning prayer ritual, then on to the shrine.
In the season of pale cherry blossoms, I went to ride the Kominato Railway, a small line in southern Chiba Prefecture. In spring, cherry blossoms and rapeseed flowers bloom along the tracks. An open-air trolley train runs here too.
Kagawa Prefecture is famous for udon, and there are plenty of great shops. But the hiyaten oroshi (chilled udon with tempura and grated daikon) at Okasen in the town of Utazu was the best udon of my life. It's so good I think it's worth going to Kagawa just to eat it.
In Seki, Mie Prefecture, an old post town survives. Wooden buildings line its single street. Few tourists, few souvenir shops, so it stays quiet and carries the air of over a century ago into the present.
Otaru, in Hokkaido, is a top destination, and its canal, the star of every guidebook, is the town's face. I went during the Snow Light Path, when the canal shines brightest.