Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum — Attraction in Yamagata

A trip up one side of the mountain to YamaDera gives you only half of what is to be experienced when you get off at YamaDeraStation. After you descend from the sublime heights of the Mountain Temple, cross back over the Tagawa River to the station and take the other path or road behind the station up the other side of the river valley to the heavenly Fuga-no-Kuni grounds. There are several small museums and galleries there, a FINE restaurant where you can enjoy genuine Shoujin-Ryouri - Buddhist temple vegetarian fare (at an incredibly reasonable price for such exquisite delicacies! ) and a gift shop featuring the curated best of Yamagata's best hand work at prices no higher than the other shops you might track them down at. But supreme amongst the grounds full of these of sweet attractions is this small JEWEL of an art museum, The YamaDera Basho Memorial Museum, which features original works in the Haiku Master Basho's own hand. Many of his best loved haiku which were featured in his travel journal filled with poetry, the Oku-no-Hosomichi or "Narrow Road through the Deep North", were written in this area of Japan. This is one of the museums in Japan which has taken care to prepare signage and other explanatory materials about their exhibits in English, so remember to ask for them at the desk. And if you get a yen for a ceremonial bowl of thick whipped green tea - matcha - you can enjoy it in the lovely tea room there for about $5, no reservations required. As you walk back down the "Haiku Steps" to the station, notice the five-seven-five rhythm...

The Basho museum is up the hill from the station, on the opposite side to the temples. It’s actually a lovely view as you get to the top of the town and temples opposite. The museum itself is in amazing building - great architecture- there’s no photos inside, but they have some of Basho’s original scrolls as well as art by hi contemporaries. Unfortunately only some of the exhibits have English descriptions, which is sad, because some of the meaning is lost when you don’t know the background to what you are looking at. There’s also a map showing some of Basho’s journey and a video documentary....

Very small museum, and over priced for what there is there. It's up a hill, not worth the walk. Everything is only in Japanese. The area is very nice, but I recommend spending more time on the hike and temples and shrines more than on the museums...