Today we had a guide named Michiko give us a tour (a big thank you to her for taking her time with us!) It rained so much that many of the places we wanted to go we couldn’t today as the weather meant we wouldn’t be able to see much. Even with my raincoat the bottom of my dress got soaked! Still I loved walking around exploring. We visited various places including Ueno and Akihabara. This post will focus mainly on Ueno and we will revisit Akihabara later.
Ueno
We went to Ueno and exchanged our Japan Rail passes so we can ride the Shinkansen starting from next Tuesday. Afterwards we visited the shrine of the first Shogun, a really atmospheric place when combined with the rain and smell of the wet wood.
From here we continued on to the Tokyo National Museum which had the history of Japan. This building is immense in size and the grounds belonged to the last shogun before he peacefully gave it over to the new Meiji government. Inside the exhibits there are beautiful historical objects dating back from thousands of years to the last hundred.
Here are a few cool objects that we saw:
I found the artwork here so beautiful and inspiring and I would love to try and create some. The techniques used here are so different from what I normally encounter.
We bought some souvenirs at the museum, mainly postcards and memo pads.
Tomorrow we go to Nikko!
[…] At the Tokyo National Museum, we enjoyed the artwork and history displayed in the exhibitions. We had to be cautious in certain rooms and exhibits because photography was not allowed in certain areas. However, those areas we were allowed to take pictures in were some of the most enjoyable exhibits for myself. Linaka liked a lot of the artwork and the kimonos in the fashion sections. You can read about Linaka’s experience and view her photos on her blog post here (Linaka’s blog post). […]