what do you see?

Today was our only day off (yesterday we worked a shift swap for one of our days off when we're visting the USA at the end of the month). We went into another new part of Tokyo, just down the line from where we live to visit Fukagawa Edo Museum. Of course before we could go there, we had to do the usual 30-40 minutes of wandering around randonly trying to actually find it...but this is always interesting in Tokyo, as you come across stuff you'd ever have visited otherwise. Today we found an interesting temple/shrine complex and wandered around it a bit. This was an interesting one with a more modern building you could go inside. It had lots of small, tatami side "chapels", one of which was occupied with chanting monks. We have a sound recording if anyone's interested. Another area held a unique display...pictures of gods/buddha painted in fluorescent colours, which glowed brightly in the darkened but ultraviolet lit room (complete with 80s Jackson Pollock-esque decor!)



After that we we finally found the museum - a large building housing part of a reconstructed Edo-era (old Tokyo from about 150 years ago) town, complete with fake sky, canal, trees and wooden buildings (one with a automaton cat on the roof which moved and meowed periodiucally). You could take your shoes off and go inside the buildings, which were recreated to an incredible level of detail. If you opened cupboards or drawers you could find kimonos, teacups etc.

Next we went to another traditional garden, which was nearby, for about an hour. This one's main feature was the use of lots of stepping stones around the central pond, and interesting rocks from different parts of Japan (no really, it was interesting!).



So, work again tomorrow - another 6 day week for the same reason as the last one!