One prominent tourist attraction in coastal Mie Prefecture is demonstrations by female sea divers called ama, who catch shellfish the traditional way.

They dive without any equipment to the sea floor to gather various kinds of shellfish and place their catch in wooden tubs that they leave floating at the water surface.

It's not known when this practice began, but there is mention of ama divers in a third-century document about Japan written by Chinese observers.

Photo by Ministry of Foreign Affairs.