Open Air Folk House Museum

Yesterday was a National Holiday: the Spring Equinox. I'm so glad that's a national holiday here. I think it's a wonderful thing to celebrate. We did our celebrating outside, as was fitting. We met Helen and Martine at Mukogaoka-yuen station, dodged the crazy old Japanese man who wanted to buy the friendship of my boys and only succeeded in totally creeping them out, and walked to the Open Air Folk House Museum.

They took old houses from all over Japan and relocated them here, putting them in little 'villages' by origin. All wattle-and-daub type buildings, with roofs of sticks or straw-bundles, wonderful wooden floors, and very informative signage (in Japanese and English, which surprised me). The kids were not as bored as I expected them to be, maybe because they got to do a lot of running around in and out of houses, and they got to collect half a dozen stamps at various locations. I took WAY too many pictures. Here's a bitty sample.

























































































































Helen


































Martine




























































































Of course, many more pictures can be found here. Also check out Martine's blog, because she takes way better photos than I do. She took a slew of pics, too, and I'm sure she'll post them soon.

Next post will be from Singapore, or after we return.