Taiko Drums (Osuwa Daiko)

Osuwa Daiko is a traditional Japanese drum center which contains a factory, a museum, and an exhibition area for displaying and practicing the percussion instruments. The first floor contains the factory, where visitors can often find workers standing on top of the drums to create the wooden frames by stretching skins. In the lower area, there is a large room with hundreds of drums of all sizes on display of all sizes. Visitors can arrange a drum practice session and receive some basic training on the massive drums for some exercise and fun all rolled into one. The famous drum troupe from Suwa has traveled the world and on the second floor there is a museum that exhibits not only drums and artwork, but a collection of the gifts they have received from a large variety of countries. Some souvenirs (including drums of course) are on display on the first floor.