After closing its doors for half a year, the museum is ready to welcome back visitors, with a few small changes.
One of the first signs to indicate the coronavirus situation was serious in Japan was the sudden closure of Tokyo’s Ghibli Museum on 25 February. As one of the first major sites to close in the city, the museum hoped to re-open in mid-March, and then April, but after the pandemic showed no signs of easing, the re-opening was postponed indefinitely.
The first glimmer of hope that Studio Ghibli’s museum was kicking back to life was the one-day re-opening on 26 July, which was limited to a select number of local lottery winners. However, the museum has now announced it will be re-opening its doors to everyone again from 5 September, and tickets are set to go on sale from 10:00 a.m. (JST) on 25 August, with a few small changes.
▼ Mei from My Neighbour Totoro says, “The museum is currently closed. Pleas wait a little longer” on the museum’s website.
The first change is the museum’s opening times, which will be limited to 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 September for the first release of tickets. The timed entry slots will be on the hour from 10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. inclusive on weekends (with a closure time of 6:00 p.m.) and 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. on weekdays (with a closure time of 4:00 p.m.).
▼ Grey indicates days the museum is closed.
Opening times and tickets for 16 September onwards will be announced at a later date, suggesting the museum is taking a cautious approach with the reopening, as the coronavirus situation may change at any time.
While entry to the museum has always been limited to a certain number per time slot, admission numbers will now be further reduced to allow for more space between guests inside the museum. And when it comes to sanitisation and social distancing measures at the site, the museum has released a number of videos showing the work that’s being undertaken to keep visitors safe.
Safety measures also include new entry requirements for visitors, such as mask-wearing, sanitisation of hands with alcohol, and temperature checks upon entry.
While the re-opening will come as welcome news to many, the Ghibli Museum has also announced that the facility will be closed for large-scale maintenance from November through to December. So if you want to visit the museum, now’s the time, with tickets only available from the Lawson ticket website from 25 August.
Source: Ghibli Museum
Top image: Wikipedia/UpdateNerd (edited by SoraNews24)
Insert images: Ghibli Museum (1, 2)
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