But beyond its famous natural phenomena, humans have created a beautiful world on Awaji Island. The architecture on this small island is more “world-class” than “small island.”

Awaji can thank architect Tadao Ando for all of the beautiful, interesting architecture on the island. Ando is one of Japan’s most “Japanese” architects, and has won countless awards for his work. But it seems interesting to me that he’s focused so much on Awaji.

Dream Stage (夢舞台)

The Dream Stage is sprawling, multi-use complex designed by Ando. While it’s mainly billed as a conference center, it’s a lot more exciting than that. Dream Stage has lots of different sections, each of which boasts its own architectural beauty.

Miracle Planet Museum of Plants (奇跡の星の植物館)

The Miracle Planet Museum of Plants (besides being a ridiculous name) is, essentially, a giant greenhouse with five different sections, each showcasing a different climate or style.

Hundred Step Garden (百段苑)

One of the most iconic parts of Dream Stage is the Hundred Step Garden, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The garden is divided up into little square plots of land, which each have different flora growing in them.

Water Temple (本福寺)

Years before Ando designed the Dream Stage, he drew up plans for the so-called Water Temple. While most people think of that hellish level in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time when they hear the words “water temple,” the Water Temple Ando built is a much less stressful place.

Built for the Shingon Buddhist sect, one of the oldest and most secretive sects of Buddhism in Japan, the Water Temple is an extremely clean, modern, and minimalist building on the outside, mostly comprising smooth concrete and water; but the bright red woodwork on the inside exudes traditionalism.

(Hat tip to Jasmine from Zooming Japan)

But not every Japanese garden is super traditional and old-school. Case in point, Hitachi Seaside Park.

Hitachi Seaside Park, or 国営ひたち海浜公園 in Japanese, is a government park in the city of Hitachinaka in Ibaraki prefecture.

The park features bright tulips, stunningly blue nemophila, carefully cultivated shrubs. The seemingly endless skies and brilliant colors gives Hitachi Seaside Park an unreal look; some people say that the wispy orange and pink shrubs look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, others say that the picturesque flowers seem like they were painted, not planted.

The pictures of this incredible park say more than I can. Check it out:

Header image by shin–k

(For the same reasons, I don’t think I’ll ever take a cruise. What if a kraken or something pops up? I’m not going to take any chances.)

The Japanese don’t always have the luxury of getting to ignore the horrors of the ocean; while almost half of the states here in the US are completely landlocked, the sea is a pretty crucial part to Japan’s identity.

There are Japanese stories of sea monsters dating back centuries, covering all sorts of frightening creatures. Just take a look at the umibouzu, a massive sea spirit that haunts sailors and fishers; they’ve been a part of Japanese stories and paintings dating back for quite some time, and are still frankly very terrifying to this day.

But these mythical creatures were inspired by real life creatures which are still around today. After centuries of inspiring terror in sailors all over the world, a giant squid was photographed alive and captured for the first time ever by Japanese scientists just a few years ago.

The giant squid isn’t the only prehistoric-looking deep-sea creature that lives off the coast of Japan. In 2007, a frilled shark, a primordial-looking shark was recorded and captured in the waters near Japan. It looks less like Jaws and more like the love child a dragon and an eel.

Farther out in the waters though, there are even more bizarre, frightening things lurking in the ocean. In 1977, a Japanese fishing vessel called Zuiyo-Maru caught something unusual off of the coast of New Zealand. It was a dead, decomposing creature that they couldn’t quite identify.

Whatever the creature was, it was massive – over two tons and 30 feet long – but it didn’t look like any animal that the fishermen had ever seen. The only thing that came close was the Loch Ness Monster.

After some deliberation, the captain of the ship decided to throw is back into the ocean; he didn’t want the massive, decaying corpse to possibly contaminate the fish and generally just stink up the place. But before the Zuiyo-Maru threw the creature overboard, the crew snapped a few pictures, drew a few sketches, and took a few samples for scientists to analyze after they got back.

When the Zuiyo-Maru returned to port, the creature became a minor sensation in Japan. The Japanese called the creature “New Nessie” (ニューネッシー) after the Loch Ness Monster. The speculation about what the massive creature could be ran wild. Nobody seemed able to easily identify what it was — was it a plesiosaur, an ancient dinosaur that’d been hiding in the depths of the ocean? Or some entirely new creature that had never been seen before?

Within a year though, scientists were able to identify News Nessie as the rotted corpse of a basking shark. I can imagine that more than a few people were disappointed that New Nessie – a creature they thought could be something as fantastic as a dinosaur – turned out to just be a shark.

While it might be disappointing to discover that New Nessie was something so mundane, it certainly hasn’t been the last thing from the ocean to capture our imagination. Tons of different unidentified creatures from the sea (also known as “globsters”) have been found in the years since New Nessie, and caught people’s attention in the same way.

And when the mysterious fails, real, identifiable sea creatures can still take our breath away. I’m still fascinated by footage of a long armed squid taken off of the coast of the US:

For some people though, the real fails them altogether and they resort of stories and urban legends. There were some (completely unsubstantiated) rumors after last year’s tsunami that strange creatures had washed ashore from the sea. There have been faked videos of “bizzare animal[s] discovered in Japan.” There are stories of “ningen” humanoid creatures lurking in the deeps of the Antarctic.

All I know is that all of these bizarre creatures, whether real, fake, or somewhere in between, are enough to keep me inland. There are enough terrifying things on dry land as it is!

Why have there been so many crows recently? Most people chalk up the dramatic rise in crows as a result of the abundance of Japanese garbage. In the past couple of decades, Japan’s produced more garbage than ever before and crows, who treat garbage like an all-you-can-eat viking, have been slowly but surely catching on.

CAW

And, unfortunately, this explosion in the crow population hasn’t been peaceful nor quiet. As one Tokyo bureaucrat put it:

In the old days, crows and humans could live together peacefully, but now the species are clashing

They’re bigger and meaner than their western counterparts, and haven’t been playing nice with others. Throughout Japan, these crows have attacked people, stolen food from children, plucked small animals out of Japanese zoos, caused power outages, and downed internet lines. They are a nuisance.

So what are the Japanese to do? They’ve been left no choice but to fight back.

Japan’s War Against Crows

After Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara was harassed by a crow while he was playing golf, he declared all-out war on crow-kind, a call that seems to have resonated throughout Japan. Tokyo has certainly undertaken Japan’s largest anti-crow efforts, but they are by no means the only ones.

Japan’s anti-crow efforts have taken many forms. Some people (mainly in rural areas) have used rifles and shotguns to gun down these black-feathered pests, but those in more urban areas have had to rely on the government to take care of their crow-killing needs.

Most government efforts include crow traps, in which crows are captured then gassed to death. But other anti-crow efforts have been more unconventional.

Bees

Take the Ginza Honeybee Project, an effort to drive away crows using bees. When bees catch sight of crows, they whip up into a frenzy and scare the crows away. The crows are left alive (for now), but they’re still driven away. Now you just need something to deal with the bees!

But maybe the most unique approach to warding off crows has been a teenaged falconer.

Falcons

This week, the Japan blogging community has been enamored with a teenaged Japanese girl named Misato Ishibashi who raises and trains falcons, and it’s not hard to see why. She seems more like a character out of an anime than a real person.

Her falconing skills have been the latest weapon in the anti-crow arsenal. Ishibashi has been busy fighting crows in stadiums, auditoriums, and orchards and fields. (And, no doubt being swooned over by Japanese boys.)

Will Japan’s crusade against crows ultimately be successful? It’s difficult to say, because as hard as the Japanese are at eliminating the crow menace, crows are pulling out all stops too. Crows have built fake nests to mislead government employees bent on eradicating the pesky bird, outwitting humans and delaying their demise.

But no doubt, this battle between humans and crows will continue to be fought out across the country for years to come. Or maybe the clash between man and nature will end like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds: suddenly and anti-climactically. Only time will tell.

Sources: New York Times, National Public Radio, Japan Probe