Naramachi

This guide to Naramachi in Nara centers on the Karakuri Omochakan, a century-old merchant house where an owner named Matsui opened his family home so visitors could handle, not just view, hundreds of Edo and Showa-era mechanical toys built from bamboo, paper and wood. It follows how these karakuri worked, from a bell struck by shifting sand to a fisherman worked by pulleys, and wanders into the lanes outside where red-and-white cloth monkeys hang from merchants' eaves as charms against bad luck. Ask staff to demonstrate a toy before you move on.