■Kawasaki Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum

Visitors to Kawasaki shouldn’t pass up one of Japan’s most interesting museums.  Started forty years ago, the Kawasaki Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum preserves more than 25 (they hope to add more) historic buildings moved here from locales across the country.  Most of these are houses, representing an excellent sampling of traditional architectural styles.  The museum does a creditable job of giving a sense of the lives that inhabited them.  Each house is named after a family that lived in them, and the interiors include tools and furnishings giving a glimpse into the lives of the various families.

 The buildings are scattered across a lovely, forested hillside and include seven structures designated as important cultural assets.  Visitors are invited to wander through the interiors of the houses, and in some of them guides tend hearth fires and invite you to sit and talk about the history of the buildings.  In addition to residences, the collection of buildings ranges from a tiny shrine dedicated to a god of silkworm growers, a thatched warehouse set on stilts from the Amami Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture, and a ferryman’s hut from the banks of Kawasaki’s Tama River.

 Throughout the year there are numerous special events and exhibitions.  Depending on when you visit, you may be treated to demonstrations of traditional craft, storytelling, puppet plays or Kabuki performed on a beautiful little 19th century stage rescued from a small seaside village.

 The English language documentation at the museum isn’t as comprehensive as some visitors would like, but there are English pamphlets, and most of the houses have a sign outside giving something of their history in both Japanese and English.


>>Access
7-1-1 Masugata Tama-ku, Kawasaki-city, Kanagawa

Odakyu Line, Mukougaoka-Yuen station ====(13 min. on foot)====Kawasaki Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum

>>Hours
9:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (March - October)
9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. (November - February)

>>Holidays
Monday (Open if holiday falls on Monday)
Day after national holiday (Open if the holiday falls on Saturday or Sunday)
December 28th - January 3rd

>>Fee
Adult: 500 yen
High shool/College student: 300 yen
Younger than junior high school student: free
Over 65 years old: 300 yen

>>Website
Kawasaki Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum (English)

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　-Matt Mangham

>>Hotels and Ryokans in Kawasaki