Our last day in Hakone was spend at the Open Air Museum before we drove on home. I absolutely loved this place. Beautiful landscape, rolling hills, really awesome works of art, and perfect weather made this one of my favorite experiences in Japan so far. It was easily the longest I’ve ever spent at a museum before and the boys had a great time as well.
The majority of the museum is outside overlooking the Hakone valley. The weather was perfect when we went. It was almost a little disappointing that we didn’t have this weather on the previous day when we were up in the ropeway because the view distance was awesome. It still made for a fantastic museum trip.
One of the coolest exhibits was a stained glass mosaic tower. Really pretty inside and also offered a great view at the top. All of the panels had some impressive artwork if you looked closely enough; you could probably spend hours just in this one tower.
View from the top!
There were also some really cool exhibits just for the kids. Most famous is probably their Woods of Net, a giant hammock made of nets that was crocheted by hand by Toshiko Horiuchi. Also popular with the kids was a maze that you could see the entirety of at an overlook.
There’s Jeffrey! 
Jon Jon! 
Promise that the kids didn’t get lost for too long 
Probably my favorite part was a small, heavily wooded area with exhibits in the forest, a cool bridge, and the obligatory Japanese carp (The boys even got to feed the koi!). Even though it was a relatively small area in the middle of a perfectly manicured museum, you immediately felt like you were transported to a secret garden.
Jon Jon really likes koi.
They also had an extensive Picasso exhibit. I know it’s blasphemy, but I’m not the biggest fan of Picasso. That being said, it was still pretty cool. Pictures weren’t allowed inside, but we got a few from the outside.
They had an area with some interactive stuff that the kids enjoyed (We had to yell no touching waaaaay too many times overall, so this place was kinda nice.)
There were a bunch of other really cool pieces throughout the museum; here’s a small selection:
We finished up the museum visit at their restaurant. This place was really nice with a great view and awesome food (it is Japan after all!) Definitely an excellent way to wrap up the Hakone trip.
BRB, Out to Japan – Taylor
Looks so awesome! Also that giant face didnt look sad to me! Looked content
The statue was crying. Hard to tell in the photo, but the statue itself is discolored from the water.
Really cool museum!
What a wonderful day! I’m so happy for you all! Love you!
Beautiful!
A Julia echo — AWESOME!!!