. : Gaijin-Ninjin a Photoblog in Tokyo : .: Edo Museum

I wanted to go watch some sumo but i was not sure if the place was open but right beside was the Edo Museum so i initially set out to only spend a few hours here but i got sucked into the history and spend at least 4 hours reading about the history of Japan from the Edo period up until the modern times just after the war!

I learnt so much it would be silly to write it all in the online diary but the most intresting period was when litrature was tought throught the temple schools. This created a burst of litrature some of which was banned. The demand for litrature so as technology advanced they were able to use wooden printing blocks. It was really cool to see this in a exhibition at the meusum which showed each phase of the printing till the final piece. I was able to see how drawing was so influential within books, something which might be linked to the Japanese culture so interesting in mange books. In England someone who reads comics is somewhat considered slightly 'geeky' it has a sterotype attached to it like most things, but like most sterotypes they can be differant for each culture. In Japan manga/comics are so widley read I guess it would be considered 'the norm' While waiting at a train station depending on how many people of course are waiting for the train you will usually see at least afew people reading anime, coupled with a few more playing portable console games. The rest well they will be either reading on their internet phones, napping or listening to music. The latter two seen everywhere in the world no doubt.

Anyways here's photos from the day at the museum.

This frame felt really atmospheric so i converted it to monotone in lightroom.

at first i thought this might be the first panels from early anime but it was infant a board game. As attention was focused on teaching the young, toys were made to entertain them.

old skool bookstore

I also learnt that rice was used as a form of currency in Japanese's Edo. This was then gold and silver coins at certain times of the year (i think 3-4times a year)