Sorry for the short entry today. I’ll make up for it with the next one.
This morning I went off from Tokyo into Saitama for the railway museum on the Keihin Tohoku line from Ueno. It’s a large good museum charting the history of trains in Japan from the mid 1800′s showing how they got their first trains from the UK. It’s ironic now that Japan has surpassed my country with their cleaner, faster and more efficient trains. UK trains are a disgrace!
The turntable with an old steam engine. Notice the kids on the left covering their ears before the whistle was blown.
Lots of schoolchildren were around and they were looking at me in awe with their mouths open like they’d never seen a foreigner before. So wide eyed and innocent – they have no idea what’s ahead of them in life. I spend around 2 hours here looking inside the old engines and carriages they used to have. In the middle of the floor was a turntable where a steam engine was being whirled around. The whistle was blown occasionally which scared the kids.
Some of the trains on display on the museum floor
My next port of call was to see Saitama Super Arena – the scene of many triumphant Hello Project concerts and where I had been hoping to see Namie Amuro tomorrow night but my friend couldn’t get tickets for her gig. Looks so impressive from the outside. By the time I’d arrived at the arena the weather had changed dramatically. A strong wind was blowing and it was raining quite hard. I could have gone to see the John Lennon museum but Saori was supposed to be taking me there next week.
Saitama Super Arena
A quiet day for me really and during the evening I was busily working away preparing a report on unagi meals (eel) for my friend’s company. I didn’t really mind doing it.
