As I hope you’ve been able to gather from these entries, our stay in Japan had gone so smoothly and was filled with so many amazing destinations, that I hesitate to even enter the word regret into this post. That being said, if there was a regret about our stay in Japan, it’d be that we didn’t have more time to explore the rest of the country, especially given that springtime in Japan, particularly with the arrival of cherry blossoms, has a reputation for being astoundingly beautiful. And while Tokyo did offer beautiful weather, green space, and even a museum of natural wonder, it was still a city. Thankfully, our last day in Japan offered us a chance to get outdoors and experience a small taste of what spring in a more rural setting could look like by exploring the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum.
Located about 30 minutes west of Tokyo, this museum affords visitors the opportunity to walk through a village comprised of moved, preserved, and reconstructed buildings that range in date and style from the 17th to the 20th century. Similar to our stay in Jioufen, I’m not sure there’s much I can offer about the beauty of these buildings except to post my pictures below. But for anybody who is visiting Tokyo or even has the slightest interest in historic architecture, I could not recommend this museum any more highly. As it turned out, Gioia and I spent almost the entirety of our final day in Japan there and for that, I have no regrets.
The entrance to the museum, located at the center of Koganei Park:
A photo studio making use of natural light:
Residences and their interiors:
A public bathhouse and various shops:
Miscellaneous sites around the museum:
It was on this note of tranquility that our stay in Tokyo reached its end. For the sake of full transparency, I’ll note that we spent the rest of our evening grabbing dinner at a dumpling house close to our hotel before packing our belongings for an early flight the next morning to Korea. That journey would be a bit bumpier than we expected but alas, that is a story for another post.
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