recommended sites to see in japan

hi everyone,

i will be going on my second trip to japan later this year and i am trying to work out a rough itinerary for the trip. we will be travelling for 16 days. during my last trip i spent 5 days in kyoto, 4 days in tokyo,and 1 day in Hiroshima.

This time I would like to branch out a little and travel further afield and I was hoping that people might be able to offer some suggestions of places of regions that they think are worth a visit.

any advice would be much appreciated.

cheers!

Try Takayama http://www.michaelpam.com/Japancities/Takayama.html
Or Nara http://www.michaelpam.com/Japancities/nara.html

Or hunt down a festival. Sometimes the cities get a bit same-ish and an event is a bit more interesting. There are many festivals.

I suggest you to check these cities.

Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya(Japan's top 3 metropolises)
Tokyo, Nara(Japan's top 2 historical cities)
Hokkaido, Okinawa, Nagano(Japan's top3 natural prefectures)

Kyoto, Nara(Japan's top2 historical cites)

What about Koyasan, Takayama and Himeji?

thanks for all your suggestions. Takayama and Nara look great and I will definitely put them on the list. Himeji has the beautiful castle so we do plan to go there also.
Nagano is where the wild monkey park is, is that right? I would like to see the monkeys. I think that would be great.

If you get tired of all the big cities, you might be pleasantly surprised by Kamikochi: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6040.html