Contextualisation

Back to the history and culture, we went to the Tokyo National Museum, which according to our guidebooks is the one to go to if you only see one, and I can understand why.

Up a few stops on the metro and we pop out at Ueno, a bit of confusion later (JR local, shinkansen and metro lines tangled up with three levels of foot bridges and two levels underground) and we’re in Ueno park, with quite a few museums on its grounds, and some lovely old buildings too.

With artifacts spanning from earliest beginnings in the Joemon period some 6000 to 500 BC, all the way to the Meiji restoration it was a good outline to japanese history as a whole that helped put some weight behind the history podcasts I’d heard. It was also nice where we could slot in those areas we’d come across elsewhere on the trip, like a gift given in Ehime, the province in which Matsuyama was based. We even had a go at some caligraphy, and were reminded that it can take years to master as ours didn’t seem to match up to the examples…

Pottery, paintings as gifts to friends, intricate lacquer ware, beautiful hairpins, flashy armour, camphor wood statues, scrolls of calligraphy, and finely made blades all on display. There was some really interesting stuff in there.

Our thirst for history slated for the time being, we returned to the hotel. In the evening we went out in search of dinner and stumbled upon a festival in progress, men out wearing happi throwing an ornate totem around. We had never noticed the shrine behind our hotel and now a whole block’s worth of back streets were pedestrianised and lit up in its honour.