Shayokan (Dazai Osamu Memorial Museum)

"This father built an awfully big house. No taste to it, just big." That is Dazai Osamu on his own birthplace, and walking up from Kanagi Station you can see what he meant. His father, Tsushima Gen'emon, one of the largest landowners in Tsugaru, finished it in June 1907 as both family home and the office of his money-lending business, and used hiba wood throughout, down to the rice storehouse. Dazai, born Tsushima Shuji, arrived two years later as the sixth son. Inside are 11 rooms on the ground floor and 8 upstairs, and the storehouses now hold the exhibition: his writing desk things, first editions and the cape he liked to wear. After the war the family let the house go, and from 1950 it ran as an inn called Shayokan, where locals came to drink coffee on the earthen floor by the entrance. The town bought it in 1996, opened it as a memorial museum in April 1998, and the government listed it as an Important Cultural Property in 2004. Plan on an hour. It is open every day but December 29, and a combined 1,000 yen ticket also covers the Tsugaru Shamisen Hall next door from April to November.