The thread running through all of it
Ryūjin, and the palace
at the bottom of the sea
Japan’s dragon is not the hoard-guarding lizard of European stories. He is Watatsumi, the sea itself — a kami who keeps two jewels that raise and lower the tide, and who lives in Ryūgū-jō, a palace of coral and crystal on the seabed where each of the four walls holds a different season and a single day can cost you a hundred years above. Almost everything you will stand in front of on this trip is, one way or another, an address for him.
01成田国際空港 第1旅客ターミナル
Narita Airport Terminal 1 & the Road South to Yokohama
Fudō Myō-ō — Narita's own deity — is classically shown with the kurikara, the sword a dragon king coils around and swallows whole. Your voyage opens under a dragon-wrapped blade.
Day 2 →
02ハイアット リージェンシー 横浜（山下町）
Hyatt Regency Yokohama, Yamashita-chō
From this window you can trace tomorrow's whole dragon-road: Ōsanbashi's whale-back to the north, and five minutes south the Azure Dragon gate on Chinatown's eastern edge.
Day 2 →
03横浜中華街・関帝廟
Yokohama Chinatown — Kanteibyō & the Fortune Hall
You enter through the Azure Dragon's gate and pray to a god whose blade was legendarily forged from a green dragon that flew over the smithy at exactly the wrong moment.
Day 2 →
04橫濱媽祖廟
Yokohama Masōbyō — the Temple of the Sea Goddess
You are asking the goddess of the sea for a safe crossing on the morning you board, under a gate carved end to end with her dragons. Watatsumi rules this water from below; Mazu is who you ask about it from above.
Day 3 →
05横浜港大さん橋国際客船ターミナル
Ōsanbashi Pier — the Whale's Back
The whale's back carries you to the water's edge, and beyond it the dragon king's country begins. You spent the morning under Mazu's dragons asking the goddess of the sea for a safe crossing, which is precisely what this pier is for.
Day 3 →
06二見興玉神社・夫婦岩
Futami Okitama Shrine & the Wedded Rocks
The pair who made the islands also fathered the sea-kami. Their rope hangs over the water you are sailing — and the dragon's own shrine waits two hundred metres east along this same shore path.
Day 4 →
07龍宮社
Ryugusha, the Sea-Dragon Shrine
The voyage's namesake in miniature: a shrine literally called Dragon Palace, standing where the sea touches the path, for the kami whose house you will hear of again at Dan-no-ura.
Day 4 →
08鳥羽湾めぐり遊覧船「龍宮城」
The Ryugu-jo — the Dragon Palace, Afloat
Not a shrine to the dragon king, not a gate in his name, not a hall borrowing his address. For thirty-five minutes on this Thursday morning you are aboard the Dragon Palace itself, with the two people from the story standing on the roof above your head.
Day 4 →
09鳥羽水族館・人魚の海
Toba Aquarium & the Sea of Mermaids
The building is full of the dragon king's household. His messenger is the oarfish, hanging in the deep-sea gallery. His palace is the boat you arrived on. And the mermaid the room is named for turns out, on inspection, to be a large grey herbivore who has been eating seagrass here since 1987.
Day 4 →
10桂浜
Katsurahama Beach
The beach is held between two dragons — Ryūzu-misaki, Dragon's Head Cape, at one end and Ryūō-misaki, Dragon King Cape, at the other, with the sea-god's shrine on the stair above.
Day 5 →
11海津見神社（桂浜龍王宮）
Watatsumi Shrine — Katsurahama's Dragon King Palace
Cape, shrine and kami are all dragon: Ryūō-misaki, Ryūō-gū, and Ōwatatsumi, whom Japan reads as Ryūjin. The same sea-god you saluted at Futami the day before.
Day 5 →
12関門海峡
The Kanmon Straits
The voyage's keystone. Antoku vanishes into Ryūgū-jō, and medieval texts claim he was the Dragon King's daughter reborn — or the serpent Orochi — come to take back the sword Kusanagi.
Day 6 →
13중문색달해수욕장
Jungmun Saekdal Beach
Jeju's sea belongs to Yongwang, the Dragon King; divers petition him before the season. On the north coast his fallen messenger is still visible — Yongduam, a dragon's head turned to stone.
Day 7 →
14여미지식물원
Yeomiji Botanical Garden, Jungmun
This is the one day the thread goes quiet, and it is worth saying so rather than inventing a link. Jeju's dragon is Yongduam, the head of a dragon frozen mid-roar in black lava — and it is an hour away on the north coast, which under the rules of this trip puts it out of reach. The sea god gets the day off.
Day 7 →
15천제연폭포 (天帝淵瀑布)
Cheonjeyeon Waterfall
In Korean folk cosmology the Emperor of Heaven commands the dragon kings of the four seas, who carry the rain. This pond bears his name — and its water falls three times down to the Dragon King's door.
Day 7 →
16崇福寺・龍宮門
Sofuku-ji and the Dragon Palace Gate
The whole temple is entered through the Dragon King's front door. And Nagasaki still dances its Chinese dragon — the ja-odori, chasing a jewel through the streets each October at Kunchi.
Day 8 →
17グラバー園・出島
Glover Garden & Dejima
Nagasaki's dragon came ashore off Chinese ships into this harbour. Every October the ja-odori dragons chase their jewel through the streets below this hill, and the Dragon Palace Gate is a tram ride away.
Day 8 →
18泉
The Izumi Japanese Bath
You are soaking in hot water directly above the Dragon King's roof. Ryujin's palace is the seabed, and the Pacific outside the cypress tub runs four kilometres deep in places.
Day 9 →
19変身写真スタジオ cocomo 浅草
Geisha & Samurai: Studio cocomo
Dragons ride on both costumes: coiled through the gold brocade of an obi, and reared up as a maedate crest on the helmet — a warrior claiming the beast that commands water and storm.
Day 10 →
20浅草ビューホテル
Asakusa View Hotel
You are looking straight down onto Kinryu-zan, Golden Dragon Mountain. From this height you can trace the entire route the golden dragon dances on its two days of the year.
Day 10 →
21雷門（風雷神門）
Kaminarimon, the Thunder Gate
A dragon is carved into the underside of the great lantern, carried over from the lantern before it. And the plaque above reads Kinryu-zan: you are entering Golden Dragon Mountain.
Day 11 →
22浅草寺・お水舎
Senso-ji's Dragon Fountain
Two dragons at once: Sakara Ryuo in bronze on the basin, an ink dragon painted on the ceiling above him. Here the temple's water is guarded by the beings who own all water.
Day 11 →
23浅草寺・観音堂
Senso-ji Main Hall & the Golden Dragon
This is the dragon's own hall: a golden dragon named the mountain in 628, Kawabata Ryushi painted one across the 1958 ceiling, and eight dancers still bring an 18-metre one down the approach.
Day 11 →