20 November 2024
Encapsulated
Sun City and Intermediatheque
OMG it is raining again.
The good news is that a few days ago I adjusted my hiking schedule based on the rain being forecast for Monday and Today, but not for Tuesday and Tomorrow, so far that is working out.
That meant today it was time for indoor activities.
First I just got on a train, because early on it was raining too much even for me to wander the streets. The train eventually arrived at Ikebukuro, one of the larger city centres within Tokyo, so I got off there and marvelled at the populaces ability to all develop flu like symptoms the instant it rains. There is a hive mind controlling the respiratory systems of Japanese people. I actually try not to talk about it too much as I have done it to death on previous trips, but to me it remains SHOCKING.
After doing my best to scrape layers of airborne mucus off me in a local convenience, I realised, why not stand in the rain? So I did that.
Then I ended up at the biggest indoor shopping centre around, Sun City. A place I have been a few times before when it was raining.
While sitting away from everyone as best as I could I got an ad for Itermediatheque on my phone, a free museum... FREE! I headed straight to the train and proceeded directly towards free.
Ikebukuro station. Enjoy the rain.
This entire building is claw machines. Not just at street level, all levels. There were people in there trying to win a package of spam or some laundry detergent.
Inside Sun City there is a line forming already for a 5pm CD signing. I am almost certain they are lined up for something that will occur in 7 hours time. Also, CD's still exist?
Now it is time to explore all the capsule machines. These are not the same as claw machines, but both are effectively a form of gambling. With the capsule machines you have to probably buy 20 or more capsules to collect all 5 in a collection.
Because it would be really important to make sure you get all 5 in the press butter sand miniature charm collection.
Out on the roof is smurf land. Raining again, time to head back inside.
The top floor of Sun City has the large Bandai brand weird hobby shop, which is mainly capsule machines too.
Crap photo, but you can look down on a cat cafe. I threw some empty capsules down for them the play with.
Noted.
This art installation is for cardboard cutouts of Japanese computer game / anime tennis players, complete with sound effects of balls being hit. I had to wait a few minutes to take a photo as many girls were excitedly taking a photo with every single one of them.
Big claim, huge if true.
Getting across town to Intermediateque was easy as the Maronouchi line takes me directly there. I just looked up Maranouchi, it is not an Italian sandwich maker, it means inside the circle in Japanese, and is an area located within the imperial palaces outer moat. Anyway, here is the Tokyo staion undergound, in all its gloom.
Intermediatheque is inside the KITTE building, named after Knight Rider and located in the old Post office. There are a lot of high end shops in here, I did not know it existed before today, you cannot tell from the outside as it looks like an office building.
Now for Intermediateque. It is a "Permanent exhibition of the scientific & cultural heritage collections of the University of Tokyo". So mainly bones, stuffed birds, animals in jars, mineral samples and fossils. This is a historic lecture theatre which I presume they moved here from the university.
Bones.
More bones. The whole place seems like a rich guys study filled with peculiarities pillaged from various world tours involving trunks and train travel.
You can get a good view of Tokyo station from out of the window.
I will see you tomorrow!
And now, Super Mario Xmas! Really, the Maranouchi building has replaced xmas with the Super Bright Holiday Super Mario experience. Very inclusive, except if you prefer Sony to Nintendo.