Hida Takayama Teddy Bear Eco Village

Just made it in time for January. I really want to post more this year cause I have quite a backlog, and I’m going on vacation soon, so I’ll have even more. Hopefully I can work out a schedule and motivate myself to stick with it. Anyways, continuing on in Japan. My travel buddies and I visited Takayama, aka “Little Kyoto of Hida”.  We were only there for a day and it rained the whole time, so we didn’t see much of the city, only a few museums…

Hida Takayama Teddy Bear Eco Village, located in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture
(飛騨高山テディベアエコビレッジ)

Hida Takayama Teddy Bear Eco Village is open 10am to 6pm daily from April to December; from mid-January to mid-March, they have irregular hours and may be occasionally closed, so it’s best to contact them prior to visiting during the winter. Admission to the museum is 600JPY, which translates to roughly 5.5USD. The museum is accessible via car, walking and public transportation. If you happen to have a car in Takayama, you can easily Google your way there, and it appears that they have a few spots for parking in front of the museum. (Not sure if there’s a fee or not, as I didn’t have a car.) As always, you can walk anywhere as long as there’s a road to take; the museum is about a 30 minute walk from the Takayama JR train station. Last, but not least is public transportation. Takayama’s bus center is right by the train station, so take the Sarubobo bus and get off at Hida-no Sato-shita to reach the museum. Bonus, if it’s  weather permitting, you can always rent a bike and bike there, as biking is quite popular in Japan. To make it a day out, you can visit Hida Folk Village and/or the Hida Takayama Museum of Art, since they are both close by, or you can head to the other side of Takayama to explore the other museums there or just explore the rest of the city.

The Hida Takayama Teddy Bear Eco Village houses a collection of 1000 teddy bears in a renovated gassho-zukuri traditional farmhouse. The collection includes bears from throughout the world and through out various times. The museum introduces visitors to the long history of teddy bears by starting at the beginning with a brief display about their namesake, Theodore Roosevelt, followed by the evolution of the teddies starting with bears from the 1920s to modern day teddies. Throughout the museum, the teddy bears are dressed up in various outfits and placed in different settings, highlighting different professions, such as baker bears, fishing bears, etc.  The museum places special focus on the bears placed in environmental settings to help raise awareness about environmental issues, such as bears doing various recycling acts to help promote Earth-friendly habits. In addition, the museum contains a media room and library where visitors can find more resources to care for the Earth.

There appeared to be a special exhibit when I visited, it was called “Fantasy”. The bears were placed in fairy tale like settings or dressed as mystical creatures to invoke the fantasy element. The exhibit ended in April 2018 (a tad too late to be of use to anybody, however they may be hosting other special exhibits now.) The museum offers plenty of photo-op moments, you can pose with various different displays of teddies, including several that are as tall as an adult and one that is large enough to take up a whole corner of the room. Most of the signage is in Japanese (so some of the information above is inferred as I can’t read Japanese), however there are some English translations sprinkled throughout.

My usual travel buddies and I spent about 1 hour at the museum, but as always, others may spend more or less time depending on their interests. (I’m a big teddy bear enthusiast, so when I saw the teddy bear museum, I purposely planned a stop in Takayama for it and I had a great time.) The Hida Takayama Teddy Bear Eco Village is probably a good idea for a family day trip as children enjoy stuffed animals, but it’s probably best for slightly older children who understand that they can’t take one of the bears home at the end of the day. It’s also a good place to go with friends who enjoy cute things, as the teddies are charming, and who want to be more environment-friendly, as the museum puts emphasis on the environmental theme. Anyone interested in teddy bears and/or their history will want to take a visit as there’s plenty to see. So grab your friends and family to enjoy a day of adorable teddy bears who deliver meaningful environmental messages at the Hida Takayama Teddy Bear Eco Village.