Goodbye to Japan....

We spent the last couple of days in Japan doing Museums and Temples. On Thursday we went to the Kyoto International Museum of Manga. Which was, of course, Jacob's choice. He loved it. Alan seemed to quite get into it too. Heather was OK for several hours. The Manga Museum per se didn't do all that much for me. One thing they had, besides pretty much every Manga book ever published in Japan lining the walls, were black and white drawings by what must have been almost every professional cartoonist in Japan. They were in groups on all the walls as you went through the halls. Each one was a single female and the variety was amazing. There were all kinds of different drawing styles and the subjects ranged from kimonos to the booby outfits you often see in those kind of comics. We were all totally impressed with was the special exhibit on plastic figurines. When you see one plastic figurine, you often think they are tacky and stupid. When you see a whole room full of them displayed well, you realize they are a legitimate (sp?) art form. They had all kinds from the nature ones you see in science museums to cartoon ones. They had a nice set of Alice In Wonderland figures for instance. Many came from a museum devoted to plastic figurines and I would like to see their collection sometime. On Friday we went to the Kyoto National Museum which was very good. They had a room or two of each thing -- sculpture, ceramics, brass, textiles, etc. It was just enough to be interesting but not overwhelming. They apparently constantly rotate the collection so you would rarely see the same thing twice. It must be a lot of work for the curators but good for the audience. We didn't make it through all of the World Heritage Sites but we went to quite a few temples. I wondered aloud why one was on the list since it seemed similar to a lot of others and Heather said "Look Mum, I know from experience, you are templed out when they all start to look the same." We are back in Shanghai tonight and have to remember not to eat salad or ice and also you are not allowed to flush the toilet paper down..... DON"T ASK!