Because I know you’ve all been waiting for one. Scenes from the past week spent in the Tokyo area.
Well by the time this is posted it will probably be the end of my stay in Tokyo. I can’t say I will be disappointed, not that I haven’t seen some amazing things here. I will be posting pictures whenever I finally get Internet on my phone. Right now I’m using my limited store of purchased megabytes to bring you an update.
I’ve never been one for big cities as you may be aware, fair reader, but I greatly love two things about them: museums and food. I freaking love museums. And food. The latter of these loves, at least, I was prepared to let go of. Everything I’d heard talked about the food desert that is Japan as experienced by vegetarians. It’s like starving and staring at a set of plastic fruit. Really realistic plastic fruit. You know better but every time you pick a piece up you expect it to be real. Then you bite into it and promptly spit said bite into the sink.
Still, despite being prepared for my inevitable malnourishment, I was not prepared to lose my enjoyment of museums.
Perhaps that is too blanket of a statement. I still enjoy the museums somewhat. The Tokyo National Museum was great. It was also primarily artwork. I could appreciate things without know who the artist was and that was pretty cool. It’s definitely on my list of must-sees (a more comprehensive one to be posted end of trip). But yesterday Victoria and I went to the Nature and Science Museum and, while some exhibits were pretty English friendly, a great portion of them had no English whatsoever. I spent most of the time staring at taxedermied birds and kanji. Not even the name was reliably shown in English.
The exception to the rule here is the Tokyo-Edo Museum. They have made a pretty uniform attempt to show their exhibits in English as well. I still feel like I’m missing things, but it’s evident that the curators are far more interested in catering to foreigners.
I know that I am in Japan and should expect things in Japanese. Believe me, I’d normally be okay with Japanese everywhere. I just find myself frustrated, knowing that this knowledge is all around me and completely inaccessible. Whether in bookstores or in exhibits or restaurants, I miss home.
A more positive post to follow, lovelies. I have good news. (^_^)
japanogram 