Sawara City and a Monorail ride

The whole group outside of the Japanese National Museum

Diorama of the Japanese black market

Inside a traditional house

Today we headed to the National Museum of Japanese History. This museum was very different from the other museum we attended. First we were given a headset. All the writing in the galleries was in Japanese so when we typed in the number of the item on the headset it told us the information in English. There were six different galleries. They were: Paleolithic period, 9^th to 16^th century, Edo Period, Folk Cultures of the Japanese Archipelago, Japan from the late 19^th century, and lastly the 1930’s to 1970’s. This museum was different from the last museum because it had a lot of cool full size dioramas and many interactive things. It reminded me of the Milwaukee museum.

            My favorite gallery was “Folk Cultures of the Japanese Archipelago”. This gallery showed many cultural practices of Japan. It showed how people did their fishing, it showed how holidays are celebrated, and it showed some of the daily life items of Japanese people. I also like that it had a traditional Japanese house that you could go inside. It had paper windows and the floors were made of mats. It was small and empty, but the emptiness made it beautiful. There was also beauty in the architecture on the museum itself. A big set of stairs descended outside and the galleries were at different places down the steps. At the bottom of the stairs was a nice plaza.

            

Shrine near the city entrance

"Dashi" Float

Sawara City

Boat on the Canal

The other thing we did today was go to Sawara City. It is a very old town full of canals by the Tone River. It is known for its summer and autumn festival when they have giant floats that they push down the streets. They are called "Dashi". They are the heaviest floats I have ever seen because they are made out of think wood of a zelkova tree. On the top of the floats are giant dolls of gods. The town itself is very traditional. Some of the shops and warehouses are still the same as they were 100 to 200 years ago. Many of the stores sell the same items as they did way back in time. The recipes and crafts have been passed down from family throughout time. At one point during our tour we stopped for ice cream. The flavors were very interesting. They had sweet potato, soy sauce, green tea, and pumpkin flavored.

       

Me near the city

     

As much as I had been enjoying the trip I was starting to get sick of the go-go-go style. If we were given free time we were forced to be back in a short amount of time. Otherwise we were stuck with a guide. Luckily dinner ended very early tonight so we were free to be on our own at 7pm. I decided to go explore Chiba with Jess and Allison. The weather was perfect. There isn’t too much in Chiba. It is very spread out. One thing they have is a monorail. It is like a metro but it hangs from the sky. We didn’t need to use it but we thought it was cool so we rode it one stop. We also found some really great looking Japanese restaurants. They were small places but you knew they were good because they were packed. They also looked traditional because the people inside were sitting on mats on the floor. In this short amount of time I felt like I really connected and understood the culture more because I actually got to see it close up and wasn’t just at a tourist destination. It definitely was a rush. It gets me excited for when I come back to Japan to travel on my own!