Created: 04/08/2025 - Last updated: 31/08/2025
I visited Japan once in 2024, and I hope to go back one day, maybe with a deeper focus on the countryside. Here is a list of things I'd be interested in visiting.
561西側 Sanbonishitoincho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyōto ・ 🍵🍡
A tea house with good matcha drinks and sweets (many traditional), as well as a "tea ceremony experience".
Higashiuchi-1, Uji ・ 🍵🍡🍜
The oldest tea house in Japan, from 1160, but also potentially a tourist trap!
1157 Daiyucho, Minamiashigara, Kanagawa ・ ⛩️🌳👹
Zen Buddhist (Soto sect) temple established in 1394. This temple has a deep connection to tengus, so there are a lot of statues of tengus around the temple grounds! It's also surrouded by lush nature and an old cedar forest, on a mountain side.
5-1608 Kawauchicho, Kiryu ・ ⛩️🌳
Zen Buddhist (Rinzai sect) temple established around 1450. Famous for it's large hall with a black polished floor reflecting the garden trees - especially during the momiji season.
86 Nanzenji Fukuchichō, Sakyō-ku, Kyōto ・ ⛩️🌳
Zen Buddhist (Rinzai sect) temple established in 1291. It has beautiful gardens, including moss forests, bridges, waterfalls, rock formations, a beautiful hondo zen dry garden, and sanmon.
13 Ryoanji Goryonoshita-chō, Ukyō-ku, Kyōto ・ ⭐⛩️🌳🍜
Zen Buddhist (Rinzai sect) temple established in 1450. This temple is home to one of the most famous zen dry garden in Japan. It also has a historical teahouse, and near it is a famous tsukubai (stone water basin), engraved with the kanjis 五, 隹, 止, 矢, which only start to make sense when read together with the square bassin hole (口) they are placed around: 吾, 唯, 足, 知 now means "I know only satisfaction" or "one already has all one needs". The tsukubai is also very low, which invites the user to bow respectfully to it. Finally, there's the subtle irony of the tsukubai being shapped like a Chinese coin while teaching about letting go of material desires. There is also a very interesting-looking tofu restaurant on the temple grounds: Yudofu Umegaean. Located in a traditional building and with tatami floor sitting and a beautiful garden view, they serve a great Yudofu (boiled tofu) set menu.
15-Chōme 778 Honmachi, Higashiyama-ku, Kyōto ・ ⛩️🌳
Zen Buddhist (Rinzai sect) temple established in 1236. It's especially known for its gardens, which were designed by landscape architect Mirei Shigemori in 1939, with mix traditional and modern, Japanese and Western influences. The moss garden with scattered square stones seems especially interesting. This temple also boasts Japan's oldest sanmon... and oldest communal toilets!
3-4-20 Honda-machi, Kanazawa ・ 🏛️⛩️
This museum is dedicated to the life, writings, and ideas of Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki. The very minimalist facility, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi and built in 2011, invites reflection and meditation with its still mirror pond and open sky.
Because there's no perfect way to order information on a simple website like mine, I've decided to separate those places of interest into rough categories, and later use ctrl+f on emojis or cities to find what I'm looking for more precisely.