Hitachi Seaside Park is located 120 km north-east of Tokyo. The 200-hectare park faces the Pacific Ocean and is flush with a variety of flowers of various colors that are in bloom all throughout the year. Among them are 4.5 million nemophilas (baby blue eyes) on hills that occupy some 3.5 hectares of the park’s total area. The flowers are very popular amongst international tourists who visit Japan.
More than 9 million residents live in the capital city of Tokyo. Tokyo has various kinds of tourist attractions. The latest cultural trends can be found in Shibuya or Harajuku, Shinjuku and Ginza are known for shopping, and Tokyo is full of traditional sites including Asakusa’s Sensoji Temple and Meiji Jingu Shrine.
Kobe is a major port city in western Japan that opened to foreign trade and became home to one of the first foreign communities in the 19th century. The city is on a narrow strip of land between mountains and sea, and has a variety of tourist attractions ranging from a vibrant commercial districts that includes a Chinatown, a ropeway, and a cable car that take you to either a garden or an observatory where you can enjoy a commanding view of the entire landscape of the town with the port in the backdrop.
Mount Koya or Koyasan is the center of a Buddhist sect. Shingon Buddhism was introduced to Japan by Kobo Daishi (Kukai) about 1200 years ago. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004 along with neighboring Kumano, Yoshino and Ominesan as the “Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.” Visitors can experience an overnight stay at a temple lodging (shukubo), experience eating a vegetarian monk's cuisine (shojin ryori) and attend morning prayers that are offered at about 50 temples.