eatmono JAPAN TOURISM

TOTTORI

Tottori Sand Dunes Japan: Complete Guide to Activities, Access and Tips

The Tottori Sand Dunes are one of Japan’s most unexpected natural wonders — a stretch of active sand dunes up to 16 kilometres long and 2.4 kilometres wide rising from the coast of the Sea of Japan in Tottori Prefecture. For most international visitors, “Japan” conjures images of temples, neon-lit cities, and cherry blossoms — not vast sculpted dunes casting long shadows in desert light. That is precisely what makes Tottori so remarkable. It offers a visual and physical experience found nowhere else in Japan, combined with a surrounding region of onsen towns, seafood culture, and folk art traditions that […]

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SHIMANE

Izumo Grand Shrine Complete Guide: History, Prayer Rituals and Visitor Tips

Izumo Grand Shrine — known in Japanese as Izumo Taisha or more formally as Izumo Oyashiro — is not merely one of Japan’s oldest and most important Shinto shrines. It is, according to Japanese mythology, the very place where the gods of Japan convene each year to determine the fates of human relationships. For pilgrims, history enthusiasts, and curious travellers alike, a visit to Izumo Taisha is one of the most profound cultural experiences available anywhere in Japan — and for most international visitors, it remains entirely undiscovered. This complete Izumo Grand Shrine visitor guide covers everything you need for […]

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TOKUSHIMA

Naruto Whirlpools Guide: Best Boat Tours, Viewing Times, and Getting There

The Naruto Whirlpools are one of nature’s most mesmerising spectacles — vast spinning vortices of seawater up to 20 metres in diameter that form in the Naruto Strait between Tokushima Prefecture and Awaji Island every six hours as tidal currents collide. They are the third-largest natural whirlpools in the world (after Norway’s Saltstraumen and Canada’s Old Sow), and unlike those northern counterparts they can be viewed up close from a glass-bottomed boat or from a glass-floored walkway suspended 45 metres above the roiling water. If you have ever wanted to stand directly above a swirling ocean vortex and feel the […]

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TOKUSHIMA

Things to Do in Tokushima: Iya Valley, Awa Odori, and Naruto Whirlpools

Tokushima Prefecture sits in the northeast corner of Shikoku, and it packs more drama into a compact area than almost anywhere else in Japan. Within its borders you will find the Iya Valley — one of the country’s most inaccessible and atmospheric mountain gorges — the thundering Naruto Whirlpools in the strait between Tokushima and Awaji Island, the four-century-old Awa Odori dance festival, and a stretch of the Pacific coast wild enough that it still sustains wild sea turtles. If you are wondering what to do in Tokushima, prepare to be surprised by how much depth this often-overlooked prefecture contains. […]

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KOCHI

Things to Do in Kochi: Wild Coast, Fresh Bonito, and Ryoma Country

Kochi Prefecture is the wildest, most untamed corner of Shikoku — and that is exactly its appeal. Facing the open Pacific Ocean, Kochi has Japan’s highest rainfall, its longest unmodified river, its most atmospheric castle market, and a food culture so distinctive it feels like its own country within a country. If you want to know what to do in Kochi, prepare for dramatic coastal scenery, some of the freshest seared bonito you will ever eat, and landscapes that feel genuinely remote even though a rapid train can bring you here from Takamatsu in two hours. Kochi is one of […]

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