Nagashibina Doll Museum, Doll museum in Mochigase, Tottori, Japan
The Nagashibina Doll Museum is a wooden building in Mochigase, Tottori, partly modelled on Kinkaku-ji. It opened in 1986 as a facility displaying Japanese hina dolls year-round. Its three floors hold exhibition rooms, a fureai hall and a third-floor observation deck, with a shop and the Bonbori cafe attached.
Founded in 1986, the museum was established to preserve the Nagashibina tradition, where paper dolls are placed on straw boats and released into rivers. This practice grew from earlier spiritual customs and continues to be observed during the Doll Festival in the region today.
The museum's name comes from nagashibina, the custom of setting paper dolls adrift on straw boats. Each year on the old lunar calendar's third day of the third month, the Mochigase Nagashibina rite is held on the Chiyo River in front of the museum; in 2014 it fell on 2 April. Displays include nagashibina from various regions and those of Mochigase.
The museum is a three-minute walk from JR Imbi Line's Mochigase Station. It opens from 9:00 to 17:00 and closes on Wednesdays, except when that day is a public holiday, and over the New Year period from 29 December to 2 January. The building has exhibition rooms on the first and second floors and an observation deck on the third, with a souvenir shop and the Bonbori cafe-restaurant attached.
The building is a wooden structure partly modelled on Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. It was built in 1986 as one of the Forestry Agency's model projects to promote domestic timber use, by the former Mochigase town, long known for its nagashibina custom.
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