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The First-Timer's Japan Guide

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All Events Places

Temple

Zuiryuji Temple

A 17th-century Soto-school Buddhist temple in Takaoka houses several buildings designated as national treasures and important cultural properties.

Takaoka · Toyama

Temple

The Great Buddha of Takaoka

This bronze statue, one of three famous Great Buddhas in Japan, showcases the casting techniques of Takaoka's celebrated bronze ware industry.

Takaoka · Toyama

Temple

Saijo Inari

Saijo Inari is a 1,200-year-old Buddhist temple and one of Japan's three great Inari sites, preserving a rare form of Shinto-Buddhist syncretic worship.

Okayama

All Events Places

Temple

Zuiryuji Temple

A 17th-century Soto-school Buddhist temple in Takaoka houses several buildings designated as national treasures and important cultural properties.

Takaoka · Toyama

Temple

The Great Buddha of Takaoka

This bronze statue, one of three famous Great Buddhas in Japan, showcases the casting techniques of Takaoka's celebrated bronze ware industry.

Takaoka · Toyama

Temple

Saijo Inari

Saijo Inari is a 1,200-year-old Buddhist temple and one of Japan's three great Inari sites, preserving a rare form of Shinto-Buddhist syncretic worship.

Okayama

Temple

Jogi Nyorai Saihoji Temple

This Pure Land Buddhist temple in Sendai houses a rare sacred scroll of Amida Buddha that is unveiled only five times each year.

Sendai · Miyagi

Temple

Tofukuji Temple

Tofukuji is one of Kyoto's great Zen temples, celebrated for its sweeping maple valley and the modern garden surrounding the abbot's quarters.

Kyoto

Temple

Kimiidera

A 1,250-year-old Buddhist temple in Wakayama that holds the second position on Japan's oldest pilgrimage route dedicated to Kannon worship.

Wakayama

Temple

Saimyō-ji

Tendai Buddhist temple with National Treasures and a designated scenic garden, featuring ancient Asuka-period Buddhist paintings discovered on interior pillars in 2020.

Kora · Shiga

Shrine

Tsushima Shrine

Head shrine of a nationwide network of about 3,000 Tsushima temples, worshipping the deities Gozutennō and Susanoo with legendary origins in the third century BCE.

Tsushima · Aichi

Temple

Ryufukuji

Buddhist temple founded in the Kenei era and relocated in 1557, built on former Ouchi clan lands and maintained as a museum to their history.

Yamaguchi

Temple

Banna-ji Temple

This temple, the head of the Dainichi sect, was founded in 1197 on the grounds of the Ashikaga clan residence and is designated a National Historic Site.

Ashikaga · Tochigi

Temple

Saikyo-ji Temple

Saikyo-ji, the head temple of the Tendai Shinsei sect, was founded by Prince Shotoku and reorganized in 1486 as the sect's central training site.

Otsu · Shiga

Temple

Hōryū-ji

This seventh-century Buddhist temple features some of the world's oldest wooden structures and several national treasures, including a five-story pagoda.

Ikaruga · Nara

Temple

Miidera Temple

Head temple of the Tendai Jimon sect, Miidera was founded in the seventh century and has survived repeated destruction, earning the name Phoenix Temple.

Otsu · Shiga

Temple

Kinkaku-ji

A golden Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto built in the 14th century as a shogun's retirement villa and now one of Japan's most iconic landmarks.

Kyoto

Temple

Mutsu Kokubun-ji

A provincial Buddhist temple founded in 741 as part of an imperial initiative, now housing Edo-period structures and archaeological remains.

Sendai · Miyagi

Temple

Kōzan-ji

A Buddhist temple in Yamaguchi featuring two national treasure halls from the Kamakura period, including one built in 1320.

Shimonoseki · Yamaguchi

Temple

Shorinzan Daruma Temple

A small Zen Buddhist temple built in 1697 in Takasaki, hometown of the traditional Daruma doll, known for its particularly lucky talismans.

Takasaki · Gunma

Temple

Kotoku-in

A Buddhist temple in Kamakura housing the Great Buddha, a monumental copper statue of Amida Buddha cast in the 13th century.

Kamakura · Kanagawa