A small museum in the city where you can travel back in time to a town in Edo (former Tokyo). The Fukagawa Edo Museum is now regaining the bustle it had before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the exhibition room that reproduces Fukagawa-Sagacho (a town in Edo) around 1840, there are life-size reproductions of shops and houses lined up. The selling point of this museum was that you could enter any building and directly touch any of the exhibits. You could feel the life of people in those days.
The museum was crowded with many foreign visitors before the COVID-19 pandemic, but due to the spread of COVID-19, it was forced to be temporarily closed on February 29, 2020. After being closed for 3 months (the closed period was extended once), the exhibition was reopened on June 1st. You could no longer touch anything. It felt like looking at old things through a showcase, and that overwhelming presence was lost.
I am an English volunteer guide in the museum. I sometimes guided during this period, but there were no visitors from overseas. Even if I occasionally saw non-Japanese visitors, they were the people living in Japan who had lost the opportunity to return to their homeland. They came to the museum to find something to enjoy in their daily life in a difficult situation. However, I felt it a pity that they could not enjoy the museum full of presence in the past.
From April 25 to May 31, 2021, the museum was forced to temporarily close again due to the re-expansion of COVID-19. On June 1, the exhibition room was reopened for viewing, but it was closed again due to renovation work on facilities (unrelated to COVID-19). The closure lasted nine months and the exhibition has resumed since August 1, 2022.
As for the exhibits, restrictions are gradually being eased as the COVID-19 pandemic has calmed down considerably. It is now possible to enter some buildings, as well as to touch basically all the exhibits. Where there is a notice saying "Please take off your shoes.", you can enter the room after taking off your shoes.
If there is a notice saying "Please do not step in the house.", it is still prohibited to enter.
Though some restrictions still remain, the old feeling of "hands-on with Edo life" has returned. Visitors from overseas have been returning too! In addition to European countries, the United States, and Southeast Asian countries, of which a lot of people visited us in the past, we also have visitors from a variety of countries, such as a group of visitors from Israel I guided the other day. I am so happy as an English volunteer guide.
On the KEV website, we offer several model courses. The Fukagawa Edo Museum is included in Course B. Courses can be combined. Please contact us from the KEV website. We look forward to guiding you.
(Text and photos by Naoki)
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