There are so many stone collectors in the world. However, few people know the matchless stone collector, Mr. Syouji Hayama. He picked up so many human-faced stones all around Chichibu. He found a volleyball-sized human-faced stone beside a river and named it “the son of God”. After picking up this stone, Mr. Hayama had plenty of lucky events in his life. Then, he became to be a human-faced stone collector. Unfortunately, he died in 2010, but his daughter is carrying on this museum. I visited here in August, of 2003, so Mr. Hayama himself showed me his collection and described several stones in detail. There were almost one thousand stones that have different facial expressions. He gave a name to each stone, like Marilyn Monroe, Gorbachev, and so on. I couldn’t show you the pictures of the main exhibition room because taking photos was prohibited. But in the souvenir room, I could get several shots of stones and the first director of this museum. This is a must-see private museum when you visit the Chichibu area.
Here is the English article which introduces this museum with plenty of photos. Please drop in.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/11/the-japanese-museum-of-rocks-that-look-like-faces/
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