Still in Tokyo

A few days relaxing and sightseeing was all we'd planned on, since we didn't want to out-stay our welcome.

We extended our stay by a day since we needed to get our boots repaired - mine was split at the toes, Hozumi's zip needed replacing.

We then extended it another day when we arrived back from central Tokyo too tired to make the planned 4am departure.

After a full day lounging around and sleeping, we were loading up our bikes when we realised Hozumi's wouldn't start...
it looks like the battery died. Red Baron picked it up the next morning, but it'll take a full day of charging to see if the battery is salvageable or not, and tomorrow Red Baron is closed. Two more days in Tokyo at the least, so I've plenty of time to write this post!

In the meantime we've tried out some of what Tokyo has to offer, including the pinnacle climbing 'wall' at a Mont-Bell outlet, but not the easy side pictured right - the other side was vertical and featured overhangs and plenty of crimping and laybacking.

We also went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, featuring a human-scale construction of Arriety's home and garden. It really was a perfect realisation of the 2-dimensional world presented in the film and quite a strange environment to walk through... like a film set for cartoon characters, but aged, weathered, tactile and 3-dimensional. According to Soushiro, the museum director talked of the struggle to balance the need to draw in visitors with such exhibits, and the desire to exhibit 'real art' that could compete in terms of popularity. I'm not a fan of any argument that tries to distinguish some art as 'real' and some as something less though, and the Arriety exhibit was definitely more interesting than most of the permanent collection we saw.

The National Museum of Nature and Science had 6 floors of interesting stuff, a 30m whale skeleton, a 360 degree theatre and a whole lot besides. Good times. It's a shame that not every country has free national museums and galleries like the UK does though... everything in Tokyo seems expensive.

We also went to a cinema with proper big screens, something I haven't been able to do for about 7 years, to see Arriety and Inception. Both recommended.