Do you think poop is hilarious? Does your kid think poop is hilarious? If so, the Unko Museum is the perfect place to spend a few hours on your next free day.
Opened this spring, Yokohama’s now quite famous Unko Museum is a wonderland dedicated to that one subject we usually don’t talk about: poop. When you step in the museum, however, you’re suddenly introduced to the importance of the subject and you come to a point of near agreement with yourself that, um, excrements are indeed a vital part of our lives — so why not dedicate a fun museum to it?!
“Unko is essential to life yet ephemeral, as we flush it down the toilet as soon as it appears,” the museum says. “But in 2019, Unko is being reborn as a form of entertainment. Here you can flush away your preconceptions and observe, touch, photograph, and play games, enjoying the ultimate in ‘Unko-tainment.’”
Act fast, though, because as much as we wish it to be permanent, the museum is only open through July 15, 2019 — for now at least!
The road to unko
The museum is a short walk from Yokohama Station, on the second floor of the Asobiru, Yokohama’s latest entertainment complex for kids. The quickest way to the building is to take the East Exit. As you leave the station, there are stairs, an escalator, and an elevator if you veer to the right. Once you’re on street level, look for the Yokohama Station Passage East. Halfway through the passage, there’s an opening right in front of Asobiru. When we walked up to the building, there were young kids posing with plastic poop-on-a-stick, so I knew we were in the right place (and that this was going to be fun).
The stairs or elevator that is directly in front of you is the best way to get to the second floor. You must enter the museum within the time window shown on your ticket.
Museum highlights
The first highlight of the museum is one of the first things you’ll encounter: My Unko Maker. You will walk into a room and stand in front of six colored toilets.
The guide tells you to sit on a toilet (you’ll take turns if your group is big enough) and grunt as if you are dropping a big one. Stand up and you’ll find your very own plastic poo to take home as a souvenir. Everybody gets a poop, even my toddler who was sitting on my lap.
The museum has three themes, and each of the small rooms fits into one of the themes. It is best to visit the museum clockwise.
In 2019, Unko is being reborn as a form of entertainment.
First stop: the “Unstagenic Area” where you can pose with the poo in various Instagram-worthy settings, ending with a walk through a dark room filled with colored poops hanging from the ceiling.
Older kids will get a kick out of the poop-shaped props and decorations. Encourage creativity by combining the backgrounds with the poop souvenir from My Unko Maker to take one-of-a-kind photos.
The second theme is “Unteractive,” which is a lot of fun for kids of all ages. My toddler loved the “Hop!Step!Jumpoo!” area because pictures are projected onto the walls and floor, and you can jump on the poo circles and they splatter like paint.
The game records your score and after a minute or two, it’ll tell you how many poos you jumped on. Older kids will also love the shouting room, where you get to yell “UNKO!” as loud as you can into a microphone.
The third theme is “Untelligence” with an exhibit of poo-themed products from around the world including games, coffee, and art; a wall of dry-erase toilets where kids and adults can draw their own take on poop; and a “gallery of number twos” where various people have drawn unko.
The final room is a big lobby, glimpsed when you first walked into the museum. It is fitted with three poop-themed video games, a cafe with poop-shaped tables and chairs, toy machines that vend poop keychains, and — of course — a giant neon poop and ball pit. Be sure to be near the ball pit at 59 minutes past the hour; you don’t want to miss the poop explosion!
Getting your tickets
The museum controls the number of people in the museum, so it’s highly recommended to get your tickets in advance. Tickets cost ¥1,600 in advance for junior high school and older (¥1,700 for a same-day ticket) and primary-school children are ¥900. Children younger than elementary school age can get in for free.
You can get tickets online through the official Unko Museum website(Japanese only) or an English-language site here. Tickets are currently on sale through June 30, although the museum will be open until July 15.
Choose the date you want to visit the museum, and the one-hour window in which you will arrive. You must enter within that window, but once you are in, you can stay as long as you like. I would recommend allowing for 30-60 minutes to enjoy the whole museum; more if your kids are really into it, and less if it is just a group of adults.
The Deets
Address:Asobiru 2F (Inside Ale-Box), 2-14-9 Takashima, Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Open:Now through July 15. Tickets reservations until June 30. Open daily, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Last admission 8:30 p.m.
