In the dimly lit room of the former Udagawa Residence, a lamp glowed dimly.

When I think of Urayasu, the first thing that comes to mind is Tokyo Disney Resort. However, that image has only been true since 1983, when Tokyo Disneyland opened. Originally, Urayasu was a half-farming, half-fishing village with villages on the banks of the Sakai River, a tributary of the Edo River. Walking around Urayasu today, where about three-quarters of the city area is made up of reclaimed land built after the 1960s, there are few things that remind you of the days when the city was half-farming and half-fishing. The Urayasu of that era is only frozen and preserved in Shugoro Yamamoto's "The Tale of Blue Beka Boat."

Having said that, there are still a few things that remind me of the old Urayasu when I walk along the Sakai River. One of them is the former Udagawa family residence, a merchant house built in 1869 that was used as a clinic after World War II and has been preserved. Although the area is now a residential area, it used to be the front town of Seiryu Shrine, where a wide range of businesses such as rice shops, oil shops, general stores, and kimono shops used to be located.

When I went up to the second floor above the restored storeroom, the room was dimly lit with only some bare light bulbs. These bulbs were not there at the time of construction. It was probably installed in the former Udagawa Residence only after the Showa era.

Paintings should be restored as close as possible to the original created by the artist's hands, but there is no such rule for the restoration of buildings. Buildings are not only to be appreciated but also to be used, so no matter how close they are to the original, they are not to be restored in an inconvenient way. As a result, there are many historical buildings in the world that are being preserved, and the technology that has been used for generations is mixed in, making them look like Out-of-place artifact in the eyes of experts.

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