A Day At: the Hakone Open-Air Museum

Recently I went to Hakone and went to the Hakone Open-Air Museum. I enjoyed it very much. 

The Open-Air Museum has a lot of sculptures and artworks, well, in the open air. There's also a Picasso gallery, and several other indoor exhibits. The mountainous scenery around is quite beautiful - so green! - and if the weather is nice, it's a grand place to stroll about. I spent a very leisurely four hours there.

So immediately after going in, it was straight to the cafe for a cappuccino. This is always the first order of every outing I have. ^_^ From the cafe I could see lots of green mountain scenery, and some seats that looked like fried eggs.

Cake followed the cappuccino, and then I went out. The weather was perfect - a hot summer's day, but as I was in the mountains, it was a little cooler. I pottered around past lots of different sculptures; a giant crying head, a series of coloured squares making a rainbow that kids were playing on; an underground tunnel. The whole area had the kind of whimsical, 'wander where you will' feel that I got from the Ghibli museum in Mitaka. There was a koi pond where you could feed the fish. 

My favourite part was a children's play area, the 'forest of net'. This was a child's heaven - a massive contraption of nets and hanging bouncy swings and soft spongy ground. The area was full of children's laughter. I sat and watched for a while. Those kids were having the time of their lives.

The whole 'museum' was very child-friendly, with lots of things for kids to play on, and many small children were running around excitedly.

I continued walking down and saw the Picasso exhibits. I went to the gift shop and bought some souvenirs. I was just thinking I should find a nice place to sit down - I'd been walking for a while, and was getting footsore - when I came upon a hot spring foot bath. The very thing! I sat in it for almost half an hour. Bizarrely, the bath had lemons and oranges floating in it. Like, whole lemons and oranges. It gave the bath a faint citrus flavour, and the kids something to kick...

After this, I went up a stained glass tower - so beautiful! - and enjoyed the panorama from the top.

I meandered my way back up toward the entrance - looking at other sculptures, including this massive series of interconnecting tunnels and tubes that was, of course, full of children playing - and looked at the exhibits near the entrance. I had lunch and walked around the park some more.

One room near the entrance was full of people making decorative plates out of clay. I mean, each person had lots of different colours of clay, and were shaping pictures onto plates. If I'd had more time I would have loved to try it. I was impressed by how good everyone was - even quite young children were making really good pictures.

I'd really recommend this place if the weather is nice.

To go there, take the Hakone Tozan line from Hakone Yumoto up to Gora. Just before Gora, get off at the stop 'Chokoku no mori'. You can't miss it, as you will see the sculptures from the train as you pull into the station.