The Log Dog Blog: Land of the Rising Sun: Day 3

Sunday, April 9

We spent another day sightseeing in Tokyo today, despite a second day of rain! The weather forecast makes me hopeful that our days ahead at the Disney Parks will be involve sunshine, so my fingers are crossed! I don't mind rain, but certainly bright blue skies make for better photos!

Speaking of rain, we bought two umbrellas today. We did without yesterday, because it just kind of sprinkled steadily throughout the day and jackets were sufficient. Well, sufficient for us, because it seemed like every person in Tokyo was carrying an umbrella, which seemed like overkill. Today was a different story and at times the rain was a very heavy downpour, so we stopped at the train station and bought two umbrellas.

Purchasing umbrellas is not a particularly interesting fact in and of itself, but when we arrived at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Technology, one of the employees directed us to an area where it was clear we were to "check" our umbrellas so as to not carry them through the museum. What we found was an area that I like to refer to "umbrella jail" where there were numbered slots in which to vertically place the umbrellas, complete with a little swinging door that went around the neck/handle of the umbrella. That would have been enough to keep me amused for the day, but each little door had a key and a locking mechanism to secure the umbrella and prevent anyone without the correct key from removing it! I really don't know why I found this to be so hilarious and ingenious, but I really believe this will be one of things I remember about Tokyo for a long time!

The reason we visited that museum is because due to the weather, we had to shift gears with our plans and change from outdoor things to indoor things, and C happened to discover a an exhibit at the museum that had opened one day earlier. Seriously, it had JUST opened! The exhibit? The Art of Disney Animation! Could it have been more perfect timing?!? I wish I had more pictures, but photography was not allowed inside the exhibit. Suffice it to say it was fabulous and as would be expected, I shed many tears as we explored the exhibit!

Later in the day we visited the Edo Tokyo Museum which offered an enlightening history of Tokyo complete with models and artwork. It was fascinating to learn about such an interesting city and we were very impressed with what the museum had created.

It's hard to capture what makes Tokyo so unique, but I am loving it more than I thought I would. It is beautiful, exceptionally clean, and the people are friendly...we have felt welcome at every place we've visited even though we do not speak one word of Japanese! There is so much to do and see - much more than we could ever fit into only a couple of days! - and the public transportation makes it very easy to get around! All in all, it is a fabulous city!

Disney adventures await us tomorrow! I am SO excited!

Cherry Blossoms

The elevator numbers at our hotel!

One of the train stations - so bright and clean!

Space Shuttle outside the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation!

Enormous globe inside the museum!

Umbrella Jail!

The Art of Disney Animation exhibit!

A small sample of the beautiful flowers planted everywhere!

No idea what this weird gigantic clock is!

Map of the subway system!

Cherry blossoms are everywhere!

Another umbrella jail!

Exhibit at the Edo Tokyo Museum!

Lucky Cat!

Green Tea doughnut from Krispy Kreme!

Dumbo souvenirs from the Art of Disney Animation exhibit!

These three photos were taken the morning we were checking out of the hotel in Tokyo and heading to Toyko Disneyland right before I was writing this blog, so I wanted to include them, even though they weren't technically from Day 3!