We took a bit of a leisurely morning, sleeping in and then letting everybody have some recovery time, so when we finally went out into the world it was time for lunch. To speed the process, we decided to have lunch in Ueno Station, which is right next to Ueno Park, where the museum is located. We were there right smack in the middle of lunchtime and the place was overrun, with most restaurants having enormous lines. We gambled on a Vietnamese / Thai place that turned out to be pretty good and had very large portions.
Some parts may have been a little spicy, too.
The National Museum is housed in several separate buildings, but the main building seems to house the bulk of things actually on display - I suspect some of the others may be mostly for storage.
And wonder of wonders, cameras were allowed inside as long as you didn't use the flash. Some items have signs saying that no pictures at all were to be taken of them, but they were few and far between.
The museum was very austere and stylish - I felt that they were missing the chance to cram a whole lot more of their collection into places where it could actually be seen, but the style of the museum was to have a limited but representative set of priceless items of each type, then rotate them every few months.
Handwritten antique Japanese characters - virtually impossible to read.
Original samurai armor - he'd be plenty scary even if he was only about five feet tall, tops.
One thing that can be said is that the glass was REALLY clean, which was very helpful for photography.
The lighting conditions in some places had me playing with camera settings to try to get worthwhile pictures. I definitely learned a few new (but very basic to real photographers) tricks, with assistance from my old roommate, who has a lot more experience with such things.
Since all four of us are mechanical engineers, we enjoyed the posters explaining the techniques used to cast or forge various items, along with the materials science behind it. Ana is actually teaching some of this to students right now.
Some guy made this from rusty sand, with a fire and a hammer. Eight hundred years ago. That guy knew what he was doing.
In the broader Asian exhibit, they had some of the almost-prehistoric Chinese bronze castings that I enjoyed so much in Taiwan. This time, I could get pictures. I really find these interesting to look at, and that is a heck of a casting to have been done two or three thousand years ago, with basically fire and sand to work with.
More Chinese bronzes
These bits of pottery are from Iraq...seven thousand years ago.
Overall, the museum was perhaps smaller than I was expecting (hoping) for, but they did have some cool stuff and did cover most of the areas of traditional Japanese crafts, along with having some really nifty stuff from other cultures. It was a fun couple of hours, and afterward we headed back to the apartment to get dressed up for a fancy night out, which we will bring to you in mouthwatering detail in the next blog entry.
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