Top Things to do in Mito
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What to do and see in Mito, Japan: The Best Places and Tips
Discover the best top things to do in Mito, Japan including Kobuntei, Semba Boadwalk, Kairakuen Park, Kodokan Park, Tokiwa Shrine, Ibaraki Prefectural Museum of History, Art Tower Mito, Mito City Forest Park, Ibaraki Prefectural Government Observation Deck, The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki.
Restaurants in Mito
1. Kobuntei
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 102 reviews
Reviewed By hfot2 - Vermont
We very much enjoyed this ancient (reconstructed after a fire) building. Some very fine screen paintings and panels are found in many of the rooms in the women’s quarters. Each room is devoted to one variety thus the rooms are thematic in design. Poetry is on some of the walls, continuing the Literary theme of the entire garden. The men’s quarters are of a different design and the whole house very cleverly planned and executed.
A very pleasant garden surrounds the house. There are good views overlooking the valley from the garden and from the top floor of the villa.
We came to Mito to see Kairakuen, but we actually enjoyed our visit to Kobuntei much more.
tip:
¥200 entrance fee, free for seniors.
2. Semba Boadwalk
Overall Ratings
4 based on 196 reviews
Reviewed By Ettelbruck - Vantaa, Finland
Some really fast athletes running, stay on slow section round the lake!
Nice place just off the city centre, on the way to Kairakuen. Lot of swans (both black and white) as also other birds. You can also rent a row-swanboat and enjoy lake that way.
3. Kairakuen Park
Overall Ratings
4 based on 494 reviews
Also known as the Tokiwa garden, this land was originally a plum orchard belonging to Tokugawa Nariakira. Converted into public property in 1840 and renamed Kairakuen, this park is now recognized as one of the top three Gardens in Japan.
Reviewed By bobe2 - Abilene, Texas
No doubt Kairakuen is spectacular when the plum trees are blooming but to consider it on par with Okayama’s Korakuen Garden or Kanasawa's Kenrokuen Garden when the plum trees aren't flowering isn't even close. The grounds are nice and serene but mainly green foliage, with the exception of the azaleas around the Kobuntei. It just doesn't have the beauty of the other 2 Gardens. On the other hand, the Kobuntei is great in any season.
4. Kodokan Park
Overall Ratings
4 based on 84 reviews
Reviewed By ART196
The following is a description I wrote for a special interest page where I uploaded this album originally, and thus its focus:
So I’ve been, I’ve finally been.
The Mitogaku (Mito School) had immense importance in the creation of modern Japan and bringing about the Meiji Restoration, it was an ideological bulwark of Kokugaku (Nationalism) and Jukyō (Confucianism) erected against the defiling encroachment of the West. Mitogaku was the intellectual epicentre of the revolutionary Sonnō Jōi movement, which sought to overthrow the diminished Tokugawa regime and paved the way for the Meiji Restoration.
This is Kōdōkan, the Mitogaku’s headquarters. Tokugawa Nariaki, 9th Lord of Mito-han, was a great reformer: though he wanted to reform all of Japan to be competitive with the West, his jurisdiction was limited to his province of Mito. He wanted Mito to lead the way in the transformation of the country (being one of the Tokugawa Go’sanke, three Tokugawa family clans, Mito was certainly in a position to do so). It was Nariaki who established Kōdōkan in 1840 as the Hankō (Clan School) of the Mito Domain. This is the building which stands today, and its creation catapulted Mitogaku thought to the forefront of revolutionary politics.
The first head professor of Kōdōkan was Aizawa Seishisai, who coined the phrase “Sonnō Jōi” and also helped compile the Dainihon-shi (Great History of Japan). In 1825 he wrote Shinron (The New Thesis), which discussed the threat of Western ships to the Tokugawa regime. Aizawa expounded new concepts such as Kokutai (National Polity) and a national religion of Japan, to dispense with feudalism and transform Japan into a unified, centralised modern nation state. The Meiji government ended up adopting much of his Nativist ideas, developing them into an ideology of Shintō supremacy, imperial divinity, and Japanese national character extending back thousands of years. As per Aizawa’s policy, Meiji forces engineered the greatest schism in the history of Japanese religion, separating out Buddhism from indigenous polytheism and re-making Shintō as the State Religion, tearing at the country’s very soul in the march toward modernity. Indeed, some scholars trace the moral justifications for aggressive expansion of the Japanese Empire and, along the way, the corruption of Bushidō, all the way back to the Mitogaku.
I hope I have impressed upon you the importance of this building of the Late Edo Period. Now I will explain about the school itself. It is said that Kōdōkan was the largest Hankō in Japan, owing to its intellectual reach and the size of the original site, although Kōdōkan as it remains today is the main hall (Seichō正庁 & Shizendō至善堂, connected structures), entrance gate (Seimon正門), school bell tower and walls; and two more buildings, the Confucian Temple and Hall of Eight Trigrams, have been restored, and are nearby (I didn’t see them because I immediately began exploring the Mito Castle ruins after touring the main site > < ). Hankō often possessed Confucian shrines, and I have explained before that this is because the dominant philosophy amongst Bushi was Confucianism, though few martial artists today, if any, honour Confucian customs.
Students attended the school from the age of 15, and there was no official graduation age. Students studied astronomy, Confucianism, history, mathematics, music, medicine and the military arts. Medicine, military and Literary departments had whole dedicated campuses. The astronomy class was held on an elevated tumuli at the edge of the school grounds. In the first picture, the cleared ground before the main hall you see was for hosting Kenjutsu practice and tournaments. Students also learnt how to wield spears, ride horses and conduct warfare in the arts wing.
In the (Edit: fourth) picture you see a hanging scroll, which reads “Sonjō” a contracted version of the slogan Sonnō Jōi (“Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians”). However, I, a foreigner, was thankfully not asked to leave. This austere room was the Kōdōkan’s common room, and it also hosted guests to the school.
The (Edit: ninth) picture shows the main hall of the Seichō. Examinations on Literary arts were held here.
The (Edit: fourteenth) picture shows the door and adjoining corridor to the room made use of by the Tokugawa nobility. Actually, I couldn’t get a good picture of the room itself owing to the lighting, but a lavish scroll in the shape of a rock inscription hangs here. The last Shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, occupied this room when he was taught at Kōdōkan.
I hope I have peaked your interest about Japan’s most famous clan school. The rest of the pictures are shots of the interiors, exteriors and surrounding garden, which, although it wasn’t the season for the many plum blossoms planted around the school (because Nariaki loved plum blossoms), was a delight to walk in as the bare trees afforded a better view of the structure itself and also meant it was very quiet. In fact, in the garden, there was only one other guest, and we got talking. I bumped into him at three separate locations around Mito that day. He remarked that Kyōto has such beautiful Gardens and temples, but lacks the martial spirit that is so evident at Mito’s Kōdōkan and castle ruins. Well, I was inclined to agree with him!
5. Tokiwa Shrine
Overall Ratings
3.5 based on 89 reviews
6. Ibaraki Prefectural Museum of History
Overall Ratings
4 based on 50 reviews
Reviewed By ART196
I came to the museum to see the old buildings on the site. There is a primary school from the Meiji period. One of its exhibits is a timeline of school meals through the 20th century. There is an old wooden building which served as a meeting hall for farmers, a traditional rural dwelling with thatched roof, and a watermill, as well as the museum building itself.
7. Art Tower Mito
Overall Ratings
4 based on 76 reviews
Art Tower Mito (ATM), symbolized by the 100-meter-tall metal tower that stands in its plaza, is a comprehensive cultural facility divided into three sections: a concert hall, a theater, and a gallery for contemporary art. Having opened in 1990 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Mito's designation as an official city, the ATM complex has served as the venue for a wide variety of planned events, including musical Concerts, dramatic productions, and art Exhibitions featuring both Japanese and foreign artists. In addition, it has broadened the scope of its Mission to act as a base for locally-produced cultural activities. In the future, ATM will continue to be a locus of creative activities, transmitting artistic culture from Mito to the rest of the world.
Reviewed By ART196
I was not planning to enter the gallery proper to see the Exhibitions but then I saw that the current exhibition is on architecture. More than that, it is about architecture in Tōhoku following the triple disaster. “Architecture since 3/11,” does not deal with disaster-prevention architecture, in which Japan is already advanced, but rather architecture to deal with the societal fall-out following a disaster: featuring halls of worship constructed from paper tubes, communal spaces in evacuation housing, replanting village-level social ties post-disaster, and so on. I have seen the evacuation housing in Iwaki, and have heard about how small communities were kept intact when transplanted miles away, and so, living in Tōhoku, this was of great interest to me, even though I do not usually visit contemporary art galleries. Contemporary art pieces included “Charcoal Forest,” a version of which, charcoal monoliths arrayed in a row in a bed of charred wood, is also on the gallery’s exterior (pictured). There was a classical music concert in progress held at the foot of the tower when I visited, playing Beethoven, including an encore of his 9th Symphony’s Ode to Joy melody (I would’ve preferred the Allegretto from the 7th, but it was nonetheless pleasant).
8. Mito City Forest Park
Overall Ratings
4 based on 25 reviews
Reviewed By taro2015 - Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
恐竜が見たくて行きました。恐竜広場は森のシェーブル館の駐車場からすぐでした。リアルは大きな恐竜がいっぱいいて感激。わざわざ行くには遠いけど面白かったです。遊具で遊んでいるファミリーもいました。家族で楽しめる公園です。
9. Ibaraki Prefectural Government Observation Deck
Overall Ratings
4 based on 26 reviews
Reviewed By Lamaking - Katsushika, Japan
水戸市街中心部から車で15分ほどかかります。
北関東各県で高さを競ったというだけあり、関東平野が一望にできます。
ここは無料です。茨城県民はスカイツリーがあんなに高い金をとるのが信じられないと言っています。
10. The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki
Overall Ratings
4 based on 28 reviews
Reviewed By SonomaRichard - Sonoma, California
If you are in Mito and you have time to stop by the art museum. There are some nice pieces it did not take very long to get through the museum. I spent about 35 or so minutes there and enjoyed my time.
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