Otaru Kihinkan

In the Meiji and Taisho eras, the Aoyama family, the owner of the big boat, was very prosperous for herring fishing. The building is extremely luxurious, with first-class materials and first-class craftsmen from all over Japan, and it took 6 years to build. There are 6-15 tatami-sized rooms of different sizes in the museum, as well as toilets, bathrooms, corridors, etc., with unique ingenuity everywhere. The corridors and columns are beautiful Chunqing Tu (a type of lacquerware), the stairs are made of natural wood grain, and the bathroom is an Arita-yaki (a type of porcelain) toilet with an openworked patio, incorporating a very rare Western fashion at that time. Works by famous painters and calligraphers are preserved on the partitions of many inner halls. The garden is an exquisite Japanese garden composed of pine trees and round sand grains, showing the glory of the time. There is also a restaurant and gift shop on site.