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asterinjapan · 5 years

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Museum day

Good evening again from a rainy Tokyo!

Well, I think it’s dry now, but it’s been raining for most of the day, I assume due to whatever remains of tropical depression ex-typhoon number 20 of this year. And of course, there is a very easy option to do on a rainy day: visiting museums! Or well, just the one today, haha.

On a rainy day and a national holiday, I for sure wasn’t the only one with that idea, but since Ueno Park houses a ton of museums and a zoo and what not, the crowds still spread out.

So, follow me into the Tokyo National Museum of Nature and Science today!

Actually, I’ve been sort of intending to visit this museum since my very first visit in 2010, when a trip via school let me see a glimpse of the giant blue whale statue (life size!) that marks the entrance. However, visiting a museum is never first on my list when I go to Japan, simply because I want to do so many things. With today’s weather, I didn’t think one of my planned side trips into the mountains was such a good idea, so it was finally time.

As it turns out, entrance for the permanent exhibitions (there was no special one at the moment) was free today! Today is the enthronement of the emperor, so it’s a national holiday, and apparently also a reason to call off entry prices, haha. Once inside, I did get myself a tablet with audio guide, because with this being a broad museum on eh, nature and science, I was already fairly sure my limited vocabulary wouldn’t save me here. The tablet (or plain audio device, you could pick) was 320 yen, and it was extensive. It also offered you guides through the complex, so I picked out the longest one that would lead me through all floors. This was my day plan, after all!

First, I visited the Theater 36◯ (yeah, a circle, not a zero, they’re too cool for a simple zero). True to its name, it’s a movie theater with a screen in 360 degrees all around. You get a free audio device here for languages other than Japanese, and since only 60 people can be inside at once, it’s a wait until you can get in. I killed time by checking the introduction movies on my tablet (featuring a very cute animated triceratops girl), and then I was allowed in.

You stand on a bridge that features glass on both sides, so you can watch underneath. The theater has rotating screenings, and for October, the movie clips are the deep sea and the mantle dynamics and evolution of the Earth. I was actually most excited for the former, but ended up being most impressed by the latter. I think the deep sea clip has been here for longer, because the quality was slightly pixelated at some points. The mantle dynamics movie took you to the center of the earth, and zoomed in and out to a degree that I suddenly understood the warnings that some people might feel light-headed or motion sick here, haha. It’s not that bad, but this screening definitely tricked my brain.

After that, it was time to explore the museum proper! Actually, it consists of two buildings: the global gallery, with 3 floors in the basement and 3 floors on top, and the Japan gallery, which has 3 floors with two wings each. The route I had picked sent me to the first floor of the global gallery first, going up and then starting back down on the third floor basement, and then leading me through the Japan gallery from top to bottom.

The first floor of the global gallery immediately featured the skeleton of an Allosaurus, the first dinosaur to ever be exhibited in Japan, back in 1964. This hall features the history of the planet since the very beginning until, well, now, so that’s a lot to cover and gives a starting point for the rest of the building. It showed off biodiversity, an interactive Tree of Life display where you could follow the lines to see which organisms were linked to each other, and the development of human kind starting with the very first primates to go bipedal. It was a lot, and I noticed my guide skipped some numbers here, but I quickly found out that was on purpose. If you want to listen to all the audio guide points, you need at least two full days here.

I made my way up following the guide to the third floor, where there was an absolutely massive exhibition of specimens of all kinds of mammals and birds, including the in the wild extinct Japanese wolf and tons of deer, bears, other predators, you name it. This was overwhelming and a bit creepy (these animals did die at some point, quite probably due to hunting), but very interesting and it was pretty cool to see these animals that close. There was a play corner around the, eh, corner, for which you need to make reservations in advance, and where kids can play in a climbing construction that seemed to be littered with specimens as well (I assume replicas), so they could get a hands-on approach.

The second floor was dedicated to Japanese inventions starting in the 1600s, and the interaction with other countries that brought this around. There were direct comparisons between Japanese and European measuring devices, which was very interesting, because similar museums back in Europe wouldn’t do something like that due to the distance. Also featured here were the first computers, a replica of the Himawari satellite, Japanese clocks (which are distinctly different, because the time during days and nights was measured at a different pace) and a Global Environment detector, featuring a giant screen that you could interact with to draw up measuring results on all kinds of topics, sometimes even being the actual measurements of that moment. It’s a pretty interactive museum, so there is a lot to see and do.

At this point I took a break, to find out I’d already been wandering around for two hours! And I was barely getting started, oops. So I quickly went down to the basement to find an exhibition on ‘exploring the structure of nature’, or ‘that part where I’m really happy I rented a tablet in English, because I barely even know these terms in English’, haha. It was super interesting though, showcasing a model of a particle accelerator, and a ‘cloud chamber’ in which you could observe cosmic radiation hitting earth, and actual moon rocks and the periodic table with all elements (except the radioactive ones) on display.

Another floor up is one of the more impressive ones, as it houses tons of skeletons of animals throughout the ages, including the biggest mammoth and the earliest human. They had some scarily realistic reconstructions of early humans, so lifelike that I was almost fooled into thinking they were actually people dressing up, haha.

One more floor up is one of the more popular floors, for a very easy reason: dinosaurs! There were quite a few on display, and I never fail to be impressed by the sheer size and variety of them. Not much to say here I guess, except me having a good time because dinosaurs, haha.

I made it back to the Japan gallery (the building I had started in) and after some latte, I carried myself to the third floor. I must confess I started rushing from now on, since it was already 3 PM, but this building is considerably smaller and the guide has fewer, if longer, audio spots. This building is, of course, more dedicated to the Japanese natural history, and guides you through the animals found in Japan’s waters until you find yourself facing a plesiosaurus, Futabasaurus, the first of its kind to be found in Japan. It’s reconstructed as if it’s swimming over your head, very impressive.

One floor down showcases the variety of animals found on the Japanese islands, and one of my favourites: Japanese people throughout the ages, starting in the Jomon period and ending in the Edo era (or the present, if you choose to go stand in the last spot, haha). These featured mannequins in daily life situations that were very realistic, I assume they used the same techniques as in wax museums, because I was seriously impressed, wow.

Near the end of this hall, a group of people had gathered to take pictures. You see, there was another very popular display: Hachiko. Yep, the same dog whose statue sits outside Shibuya station and of which I take a picture every time, so naturally I had to take a picture of the real deal. It’s almost weird to see him in white, his actual color, because the statue is cast in bronze. Hachiko is famous enough to get 2 plaques in English, rather than just a single line translated, haha.

On the first floor, you’ll find instruments from Japan used to throughout the ages to observe nature, including the very important ones of observing seismographic activity, rather vital in a country this active.

Finally, I was back in the basement, which has Foucault’s pendulum and uh, not much else, but I was kind of glad, because I was seriously tired and overwhelmed at this point. I learnt a whole lot today, and actually feel this is a museum you might want to visit in two trips rather than trying to stuff it all into one. I had a great time, though! I took a lot more pictures than I usually do in museums, there was just so much to see.

Of course there is a museum shop, and of course it has a special corner for Hachiko, and uh, now I have a plushie Hachiko, haha. He’s very soft and a very good boy!

It was almost 5 PM, though, so I rushed out and took a quick picture of the whale statue outside before making my way back to the station. The rain had stopped, so I walked from Ikebukuro station to Tokyu Hands to browse until dinner time, which meant I found their origami paper section, so I had a good time here, too, ahem.

Back at the hotel now, and time to go to bed, because it’ll be a long day tomorrow! It should be dry and even sunny, so fingers crossed, haha.

I’m not sure if I will update tomorrow, so for now good night and see you soon!

#report #report: japan 2019 #japan 2019

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