Deep Tired

Another cold day, snowy and wet (but still not as cold as the Northwoods!), so I took myself to the imperial city main train/bus station to get a map, and then to the National Museum. The station was huge, at least on a part with Grand Central, with a mall underground, a hotel, big stores all attached seeming. I found the visitor center through a department store and up on the 9th floor. I dislike shopping in general (with bookstore type exceptions), so being in a big department store, trying to find the elevator, not knowing how to read or really ask directions, and jostling with tons of people wasn't so great. But I found the elevator, got there, got some maps and travel suggestions, and off I went to the Museum.

Museums are great for when it's too cold or too hot to be comfy outside, especially if you can really take your time and sit down with some art (or historic artifacts, depending), and just relax your eyes and look.

I had to laugh. You enter the museum grounds and pay, and then walk to one of the buildings to see whichever collection or exhibit you're after. It was snowing when I got there, and the ticket checking woman gave me an umbrella to walk across the grounds with. Yep, there's a rather large collection of brightly colored yellow umbrellas just for people to use in the grounds. How is that for thinking ahead? (Even though I was already pretty snowed on.)

The museum has done a good job putting basic label information in English, but as you'd guess, the really good stuff seems to be in Japanese. There are all these longer explanation looking things, and I just felt like a three year old not being able to read them.

The best parts for me were the ceramics collection and the kimono displays. Wow, talk about amazingly intricate and beautiful embroidery and dye work! The scrolls were cool looking, but again, I couldn't read them. And some of the painted screens were just stunning.

And then, after a couple hours, it hit me that I was just deeply tired. There's no good reason for it; I'd slept well, gotten good rest, so I shouldn't have felt tired. But I did. I almost fell asleep on the train back (which has warmed seats, by the way, making for a really happy rear end). (I hope I'm not coming down with the rather ubiquitous cold/flu thing that seems to be going around!) So I don't think I got as much out of the museum as I would have had I not been so tired, but it was worth the visit, I think.

I should be in bed now, but I forgot to turn on the bedroom heat until just now, so I'm going to take a nice hot soaking bath first while the room heats up.

G'Night!