Now in Week 3 of our Endless Winter Vacation, I took the kids to a very cool museum Thursday, the National Science and Nature Museum in Ueno Park in northeast Tokyo.
It's a huge, lovely park with several national museums and a zoo, and it reminds me of Riverside Park with long straight paths bordered by trees. I think it's a cherry blossom hotspot in March or April.
The museum's coolest thing was an entire building devoted to biodiversity, with a decent collection of dinosaurs...
...and a massive, fascinating exhibit on prehistoric land and sea mammals, many of which I didn't know existed. A mammoth, sure...
But this upside-down, sort-of rhino? And this other thing (photo by Arno)?
Lucinda was fascinated by three skeletons and dummies showing human evolution from Lucy to Neanderthal man to what looked more like Homo sapiens. "Lucy" was Lucinda's height; Arno liked the spear carried by Mr. Sapiens. (Sorry, forgot to take photo.)
There was a huge room displaying tree-of-life stuff: from amoebas to 100 types of modern spiders and 30 dragonflies to a few dozen crabs and lobsters, and on up to birds and some mammals.
Added bonus: cheap, excellent tourist stop. 600 yen for me (about $5) and free for kids under 12. We bought Ritz crackers for lunch because the restaurant had a 1 hr wait, and chilled vending-machine lattes for Lucinda and me.
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