Kumamoto City Museum

This museum northwest of Kumamoto Castle covers the city's history on the first floor, natural history on the second, and includes a basement planetarium. The standout first-floor exhibit is the ornate cabin of the Naminashi Maru, a ship the ruling Hosokawa family sailed between Edo and Kumamoto, built in 1838. Other displays walk through Kumamoto life from the paleolithic era to the 1960s, including reconstructions of a Meiji-era townhouse and a mid-Showa home. Upstairs, the fossilized skeleton of a stegodon from China is the natural history highlight. Audio guides are available in four languages.