{"id":34869,"date":"2023-12-18T20:46:22","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T12:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=34869"},"modified":"2026-03-11T11:00:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T03:00:37","slug":"day-11-nikko-tamozawa-imperial-villa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2023\/12\/18\/day-11-nikko-tamozawa-imperial-villa\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 11 @ Nikko – Tamozawa Imperial Villa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our first place of visitation in Nikko today was the Nikko Tamozawa Imperial Villa<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

According to the venue’s guide, the Tamozawa Imperial Villa was built around the former Edo residence of the Kishu Tokugawa clan, which was brought from Edo to Nikko. The main three-floor section of the residence was moved to Nikko, and the villa was then constructed around it. The villa itself was built in 1899 for Prince Yoshihito \u2014 later Emperor Taisho \u2014 as a retreat, and was used by Japanese royalty including emperors and princes until 1947. The villa represents some of the best Japanese architecture from the Edo, Meiji, and Taisho eras.<\/p>\n

After World War II, however, the place was neglected until the Tochigi Prefectural Government undertook a study of the building techniques from each of these eras and restored the villa with the help of modern architects and artisans. The restoration project was completed in 2000, and the villa was subsequently opened to the public. There is a gallery with photographs mounted on the wall that provides a pictorial record of the restoration work done by the artisans. The villa is quite large, and you could easily spend an hour or more exploring the many rooms, their uses, and their historical significance.<\/p>\n

The villa is a designated Important Cultural Property, and visitors at the entrance and admissions counter are requested to respect the area and behave appropriately. Shoes are not permitted inside the villa, but visitors are loaned padded reinforced socks to wear over their own if they have them on. There are also plenty of villa staff advising and monitoring visitors. A few of them were happy to engage with local visitors to explain various parts of the villa, though I reckon they might not be as proficient in conversational English, so their interaction with us was largely to advise us on what to do and what not to do while inside the villa. The staff were very nice, but there was no mistaking their firmness in ensuring that the property is respected.<\/p>\n

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In all, I loved this visit. The many information boards and visual aids \u2014 e.g. pictures and photographs \u2014 really help illustrate how the villa was used in the last century. Our two kids probably didn’t find the place as fascinating though, so if you have young kids with you, you’d need to keep them in check lest you get reprimanded by villa staff!<\/p>\n

Our exploration of Nikko continues in the next post!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our first place of visitation in Nikko today was the Nikko Tamozawa Imperial Villa. According to the venue’s guide, the Tamozawa Imperial Villa was built around the former Edo residence of the Kishu Tokugawa clan, which was brought from Edo<\/p>\n

Read More Day 11 @ Nikko – Tamozawa Imperial Villa<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[677],"class_list":["post-34869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-chubu-kanto-japan-2023","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/blog-2023-japan-day-11-20231218_123748.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34869"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38272,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34869\/revisions\/38272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}