The only Bhutan Museum in Japan, "Bhutan Museum Fukui"

As I introduced in our previous blog that "Bhutan Museum Fukui" had its 6th anniversary, and they had the meeting commemorating the anniversary of the museum. I saw the speeches given by two guests. It was very interesting to know so much about Bhutan and how museums should be these days. I felt that it is important to keep our traditional things and combine it with the modern world.

Today, I would like to introduce the Bhutan Museum Fukui.

This is the only Bhutan Museum in Japan. All the Bhutanese people who had visited the museum were surprised and grateful to see it.

Open: Tue.-Sun. 11a.m.-5p.m.
Closed: Mon. *Except for Japan's National Holidays on Monday, in which case the museum is open on the holiday and closed the following Tuesday instead.
Admission Fee: 300 yen for adults (19 and over), free for students (18 and under).

Bhutan is near India and it is a small country that is surrounded by mountains. The surface area of Kyushu in Japan is roughly the same as Bhutan. The population of Bhutan is 730,000 and Fukui has 780,000. As you can imagine that Bhutan is not as busy as big cities like Tokyo, London, New York City, etc.

Since there's no ocean in Bhutan, the people who have visited Fukui and saw the ocean were very excited to see it.

It is a small museum, but it has many interesting things from Bhutan. The signboards that explain about the exhibits are placed right next to those exhibits. You don't only enjoy watching them, you can also learn so much about Bhutan. Moreover, some music or films of Bhutan are played there, so you may feel as if you are in Bhutan.

You can sit on the chair of the king. People from Bhutan were very surprised to see this, and they couldn't sit on it. Some of them told me that they can't even see king's eyes because they respect him that much.

There are colorful costumes, and masks with unique facial expressions. People wear them for a special festival.

               
                  The traditional Bhutanese clothing is colorful and beautiful.

You can try wearing the traditional clothing and take photographs. Staff at the museum take them with your cell phones and/or cameras for you. Some people who tried this, they said that these Bhutanese clothing was instagrammable.

          There are many documents, books, DVDs, and photographs of Bhutan.

You can enjoy shopping at the museum as well. There are several products from Bhutan. They are very colorful, and they were made of strong materials. They might be good for not only for daily use, but perfect for gifts as well.

I use a wallet from Bhutan which looks very similar to these. It is very pretty and handy, so it became one of my favorite things in my bag.


At the museum, you can enjoy not only watching the exhibits, buying things from Bhutan and learning about the country, but you can also enjoy the events that they sometime have.

The next event will be held on November 18th, 2018 from 13:30 to 15:00 on the second floor of the building that Bhutan Museum Fukui is located.
The event is a chatting about the happiness of Bhutanese people with Mr. Ugyen Dorji and other visitors. Mr. Ugyen Dorji is from Bhutan and he's studying as a teacher trainee at University of Fukui since around October of 2017.

If you have a chance to visit Fukui, how about stopping by Bhutan Museum Fukui, which is the only Bhutan museum in Japan. I'm sure you can have a good time there.

T.F

This is the video that introduces Bhutan Museum Fukui. Enjoy!