Kasamatsukoen Park

Kasamatsu Park is famous for matanozoki — climbing onto a stone platform, bending forward and looking back at the view between your own legs. This is said to be where the practice started, and you reach it by cable car or chairlift. Seen upside down, the sandbar of Amanohashidate appears to rise from the ground into the sky, and the strangeness of it earned this one of the two great Amanohashidate viewpoints the name 'ascending dragon.' It's also the very spot behind the matanozoki research that won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2016. The lookout restaurant Amaterasu has an excellent view of its own, serving lunch made with local ingredients and the park's well-known Kasamatsu dango.