A Rainy Day in Yokohama With Kids: A Poo Museum, a Free Digital Gallery, and Somewhere to Sit Down

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It rained. We had two children, an afternoon to fill, and no plan.

What we ended up with is a half-day in Yokohama that we have now done twice: a museum devoted entirely to poo, a free digital gallery that is better than it has any right to be, and a quiet café for when everyone has had enough. Both venues are indoors, both are a short train ride apart, and — this is the part that matters if you are visiting Japan — neither of them requires you to speak or read Japanese.

1. Unko Museum YOKOHAMA BAY

“Unko” means poo. The museum is exactly what that sounds like, and it is a great deal more charming than you are imagining.

Yokohama is where the whole thing started, and the museum has now passed three million visitors across its four permanent locations. The current Yokohama venue opened in August 2026 on the second floor of Yokohama World Porters, themed around “Unko LOVE”, and it is overwhelmingly pink.

I went in sceptical. Some of the online reviews are harsh and I had read them before booking. We have now been twice in five weeks, the second time entirely because the children asked.

You sit on a toilet, and you are given a poo

Before you enter the main hall there is a row of toilets. You sit on one, you push, and a small soft poo appears. This is MY UNKO MAKER, and it sets the tone perfectly.

The colour is random. Yours is mounted on a stick, you carry it around the museum with you, and you take it home at the end. On our first visit we got yellow, pale pink and light blue. On the second, pale pink, yellow and purple. Our eldest is still waiting for a dark pink one and has already asked when we are going back.

By the second visit they had introduced paper bags to carry them home in, which we appreciated. Not that it helped: all of ours have since disappeared somewhere in the house.

It is a games arcade, not a gallery

I had assumed this was a photo-opportunity place. It is not. Almost everything is interactive, and almost all of it works without language:

• GO!GO! Unko Cart — a driving game, and the only thing we ever queued for. Both visits, and even then only briefly.
• Draw Your Own Unko — a toilet bowl becomes a drawing canvas and you paint with a stick.
• Unko Shirahadori — catch falling poo with your hands. Your own face appears on the screen. This was my favourite thing in the building, mostly because of how unflattering the camera is.
• Unko Pyonpyon — a jumping game. More on this below.
• Unko LOVE Galaxy — a mirrored room full of glowing poo, renamed “the poo universe” by our four-year-old.

There is also a hand gesture they teach you on arrival that makes a poo shape. Do it against a wall and the shadow is even better. I was unreasonably delighted by this.

A word of caution from a 40-something parent

The jumping game involves jumping. I jumped. Not high, and not for long.

The following day my heel hurt, and it carried on hurting for a while afterwards. The children were completely fine. Consider this a note that the museum is more physical than it looks, and that you should warm up or hold back accordingly.

Practical details

The official site has a full English version, and tickets can be bought in English through asoview!, KKday and Trip.com.

Admission is tiered by date. In recent months the published rates have been:

	Quiet	Mid	Busy
Adult	¥2,000	¥2,200	¥2,400
Junior/senior high	¥1,500	¥1,500	¥1,600
Child (3+)	¥1,100	¥1,100	¥1,200

Peak dates can go higher — we paid ¥2,800 per adult on a Sunday in September. Check the calendar on the official site for your date.

• One adult (18+) can bring in up to two children aged 2 or under free.
• Book ahead. Same-day tickets exist but are limited, and entry can be capped on busy days. We tried to book on the day and the first two time slots had already gone.
• No re-entry, so take everyone to the toilet first.
• No food inside. Bottled drinks are fine; takeaway cups are not.
• No luggage storage. Use the lockers in the mall.
• Children under 7 need an accompanying adult or secondary-school-age companion.
• The shop can be visited without a ticket.
• Tickets cannot be cancelled or changed once bought.

Getting there: Yokohama World Porters 2F, 2-2-1 Shinko, Naka-ku. About 5 minutes on foot from Minatomirai Station, 5 minutes from Bashamichi Station, or 10 minutes from Sakuragicho Station.

One more warning. The gachapon capsule machines inside are ¥500 a go, which felt steep until we saw the shop, where keyrings were around ¥1,800. After that, “you have already had the gachapon” became a very effective sentence.

2. YUMESAKI GALLERY — and it is free

This is the one I would tell visitors about first, because almost nobody outside Japan seems to know it exists.

YUMESAKI GALLERY is a digital experience gallery on the ground floor of the LG Yokohama Innovation Center, open since March 2022. It is built around a journey through five “islands” — Departure, Colour, Music, Astronomy and Time — with sixteen synchronised displays and a lot of interactive floor and wall projection.

There is no admission fee, and no booking needed for individual visitors.

It runs in English as well as Japanese. That is the detail that makes it worth your time as a visitor rather than a resident.

What the children actually did

Build a vehicle and travel the world. You choose a vehicle, colour it in, and it appears on screen and sets off. Quiz questions about different countries follow, and a correct answer earns a sticker for that country.

Astronomy Island was my favourite. It is a timed programme of about 15 minutes, admitted in groups, with projection across the floor and walls. The theme is the planet and sustainability, with quiz questions worked into it — and crucially, you answer by stepping on a colour on the floor, so a four-year-old who cannot read can take part properly.

Music Island reads your movements with a camera. You follow instructions on screen, wave in the right direction at the right moment, and score points, with instruments and landscapes from around the world. Both children were completely absorbed, and it gets them moving.

Colour Island lets you build a digital kaleidoscope from flowers, sweets and landmarks around the world. I chose the statue in Rio. You can print the result as a postcard and take it home; the children got one each, and I saved mine with a QR code.

Practical details

• Admission: free. No reservation for individuals.
• Hours: 10:00–17:00 on weekdays (last entry 16:00); 10:00–18:00 at weekends and on public holidays (last entry 17:00).
• Closed: Tuesdays and Fridays, plus maintenance days and the new year period. Sources differ on the closed days, so check the official site before you go.
• Address: LG Yokohama Innovation Center 1F, 1-2-13 Takashima, Nishi-ku, Yokohama.
• Access: 1–2 minutes from Shin-takashima Station (exit 2) on the Minatomirai Line, or about 10 minutes on foot from Yokohama Station east exit.
• Time needed: the official guidance is 30–50 minutes. We were there over an hour.

3. Somewhere to sit down afterwards

We left the gallery, got as far as the pavement, and heard the word every parent dreads: toilet.

The building next door is the Shiseido Global Innovation Center, known as S/PARK, and there is a café on the ground floor. There are toilets. There was also, by then, a request for food.

The café is now Shiseido Kitchen Lab, built around yakuzen — the idea that food and medicine share a source — with seasonal dishes, herbal teas and desserts. We had ice cream, pudding and a coffee and watched the rain, which was all anyone needed.

Putting it together

The two venues are about ten minutes apart by train on the Minatomirai Line. A workable order:

1. Unko Museum at Minatomirai or Bashamichi — book a slot in advance. Allow 1.5 to 2 hours.
2. Train one stop to Shin-takashima.
3. YUMESAKI GALLERY — about an hour, free, no booking.
4. Shiseido Kitchen Lab next door for a sit-down.

Do check YUMESAKI GALLERY’s closed days first, since they are the constraint. If it is shut, the museum alone still fills an afternoon.

One thing we did not expect: the Shin-takashima area is a genuinely pleasant place to walk. It is where LG and Shiseido have their research buildings, the roads are wide and the architecture is new. On a clear day it is worth the walk from Yokohama Station rather than the train.

A poo museum, a free gallery about the future, and a herbal café. It should not work as an afternoon. It absolutely does.