Museums

15 & 16 May 2015

I’ll be doing a combined post for 15th and 16th cos I didn’t do much on 15th, so it doesn’t deserve a post of its own (ouch).

No pictures on the 15th because it was the day that I left Sendai and travelled back to Tokyo. Checked in to Airbnb accommodation at Hatsudai and just had konbini food cuz I was too lazy to go out. But my host was super nice; he gave me food recommendations and places to check out, so that was pretty cool. 

16th was a day of museums. I started with the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which is like a historical museum of old Tokyo. It is MASSIVE. I got super tired of walking around it. But it was very interesting. Like there are all these relics of the past, and they show you what the everyday was like in the olden times. And the architecture of some of the old places was really elaborate. The Japanese really spare nothing. They’re like China, but cooler. 

And then they showed what Tokyo was like during/after the Industrial Revolution as well, when technology started to develop, and Tokyo began to adopt Western technology and fashion. It’s really a very historical place, so definitely not for people who can’t be bothered about the past.

Next up was the Tobacco and Salt Museum, which sounds damn lame, but it’s actually pretty cool, especially the salt part. Like you learn about how salt is necessary for life, the different uses of salt, and cool tricks you can do with salt. Which is actually really quite cool cos you usually wouldn’t think so much about salt. It’s a very taken for granted, every day substance that is plentiful and inexpensive, but so vital for life, yet too much of it kills us. What a wonderful thing to think about. 

The tobacco part was a little bit more off for me. There was a range of ashtrays and really nice pipes and cigar holders and stuff, and they had small exhibits on tobacco harvesting and processing. And there’s this section on the different packaging of tobacco/cigars/cigarettes. There was this really cute exhibit on an olden… I can’t even say for sure what it is. Shophouse? Selling tobacco. Yeah. 

I recommend this Tobacco and Salt Museum for its novelty, cos you get to see things you wouldn’t typically see in other museums, especially the salt part. It’s a good time-filler if you have nothing else to do, and it’s not expensive. It was 300Y I think? So yeah, very affordable, and relatively good and educational entertainment.

The final stop was AMUSE Museum, which, in all honesty, I just went because I had a free pass from the Grutt vouchers, and I didn’t know what to expect. The museum is located on the 2nd level of a shop, and… I don’t really know how to describe it actually. It was like, a mash-up of various things and exhibits. If I’m not wrong (which I think I might be), all or most of the exhibits are by a local artist, and trying to piece the past with the present, using the theme of BORO which loosely translates to shabby. 

So it’s the idea that you use old material to patch up new but broken items, and in so doing interweave the past and the present. I guess it questions the value of the past and outdated in light of the present and modern times. Really good and interesting use of materials, and interesting perspectives provided by the artist.

After AMUSE Museum, I took a walk around Asakusa, cos the previous time I came here was on a Sunday and it was mad crowded and gross, so this time I could actually see the things proper. There were stalls selling food and stuff, a lottttt of tourists cramming into the temple and just really quite overwhelming. So I left not long after.