We went to another great museum yesterday: the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum. The museum is located on a huge piece of parkland in Musashi-Koganei, about 45 min. outside of Tokyo. The museum collection consists of original houses and commercial properties, ranging in age from Edo period (1600-1868) up to the 1950's. These structures were disassembled from their original locations moved to the park at Musashi-Koganei and then reassembled. Some of the properties are furnished either with orginal furnishings or furnishings of the period. It was fascinating to wander around the properties and examine all the different architectural designs, most of which are so different from Western-style architecture. One of the grand old houses had been turned into a restaurant where we had lunch, sitting on the floor Japanese-style. The food was delicious! My favorite section of the museum was the Shitamachi exhibit. Shitamachi means downtown in Japanese; at the museum several properties from the Meiji period (1868-19??) were assembled as they would have appeared as a neighborhood in Tokyo.

Today, my Japanese friend Michiko took me on a tour of the skyscraper neighborhood in Shinjuku. I had never really had much desire to go there before, but I'm so glad Michiko introduced me to it. This is where some of the best of Tokyo architecture exists. I've decided my favorite contemporary building in Tokyo is the Metropolitan Government Building and I'm delighted that we can actually see that building from our kitchen window. We went to the top of the South Tower of the Govt. Building. (There are twin towers, each of which contains an observatory) and got a jaw-dropping-360-degree-panoramic view of Tokyo. Absolutely fascinating! The city just stretched on and on forever in all directions.