Regional discoveries | Value Village

HokkaidoArchitecture

Sapporo

Sapporo Clock Tower

The drill hall of Sapporo Agricultural College. The clock has kept running since 1881.

AomoriArchitecture

Hirosaki

Hirosaki-jo

The only Edo-period castle keep still standing in northern Japan. Famous for its 2,600 cherry trees.

IwateArchitecture

Shizukuishi

Koiwai Farm

A private farm at the foot of Mount Iwate. Twenty-one buildings, the cowsheds among them, are Important Cultural Properties.

IwateArchitecture

Oshu

Nambu Ironware

Iron is poured into sand moulds. The water is said to taste sweeter for it, and the ware now sells well abroad.

MiyagiArchitecture

Sendai

Sendai-jo

Built on the cliffs of Mount Aoba. No keep was ever raised.

MiyagiArchitecture

Sendai

Sendai Mediatheque

Thirteen tubes pierce the floors. Designed by Ito Toyo.

FukushimaArchitecture

Aizuwakamatsu

Tsuruga-jo

It withstood a month-long siege in the Boshin War. A keep with red tiles.

FukushimaArchitecture

Shimogo

Ouchi-juku

Thatched houses line both sides of the road. A post town on the Aizu Nishi Kaido.

IbarakiArchitecture

Mito

Kobuntei

A garden open to the people of the domain from the day it was made. Hence the name: pleasure shared.

IbarakiArchitecture

Hitachiota

Seizanso

Where Tokugawa Mitsukuni spent his last years and carried on compiling the Dai Nihonshi.

IbarakiArchitecture

Ushiku

Ushiku Chateau

Japan's first full-scale winery.

IbarakiArchitecture

Mito

Kodokan

The largest domain school in Japan, teaching letters, arms and medicine as one.

GunmaArchitecture

Tomioka

Tomioka Silk Mill

A government-run mechanised silk mill. The reeling plant and the cocoon warehouses are National Treasures.

GunmaArchitecture

Takasaki

Takasaki Daruma

Eight in ten daruma made in Japan come from here. The eyebrows are cranes, the moustache a tortoise.

SaitamaArchitecture

Kawagoe

Kawagoe Kurazukuri

Black-plastered merchant storehouses line the street. It is called Little Edo.

SaitamaArchitecture

Kawagoe

Toki no Kane

The symbol of Kawagoe. The bell still rings four times a day.

ChibaArchitecture

Katori

Sawara

Merchant houses along the Ono river. The town where Ino Tadataka spent half his life as a merchant.

TokyoArchitecture

Bunkyo

Rikugien

A stroll garden that reproduces places celebrated in waka poetry. Made by Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu.

TokyoArchitecture

Chuo

Kabukiza

The home of kabuki. A single-act seat costs only around a thousand yen.

TokyoArchitecture

Bunkyo

Koishikawa Korakuen

The garden of the Mito Tokugawa. Much of its design reproduces celebrated places in China.

KanagawaArchitecture

Yokohama

Sankeien

The silk merchant Hara Sankei moved seventeen old buildings here from Kyoto and Kamakura.

KanagawaArchitecture

Odawara

Odawara-jo

The main castle of the Hojo. The outer earthworks built in preparation for Hideyoshi's attack on Odawara survive.

NiigataArchitecture

Tokamachi

Akashi Chirimen

A summer silk given its crisp hand by tightly twisted thread.

ToyamaArchitecture

Kurobe

Aimotobashi

A cantilever bridge that once spanned the Kurobe river, with a legend of a princess and a great serpent.