Takeshima Fantasy Museum

The Takeshima Fantasy Museum in Gamagori, Japan looks relatively unassuming from outside, but once you enter, you are immersed in a surreal magical world of ceiling to floor shell decorations, LED lights, mirrors, and fantastical music.

The museum is geared toward children, so you’ll come across cute characters — Misell and Gamago — who appear on screens in each room to act out each part of your shared underwater saga. Walk through tunnels of thousands of shells to encounter princesses and shell-dragons in shell-castles. If your Japanese is decent, you can collect information en route to fill out a worksheet and win a small prize. 

At the end of the fantasy tour, there is a small museum with shells arranged in glass cases (as at a more typical natural history museum). There is also a gift shop where you can buy kitschy yet sweet shell-bouquets like those seen throughout the fantasy house.