Hideyo Noguchi

This is the amazing Japanese doctor Hideyo Noguchi, who hails from Fukushima.
He went to New York in 1904 to study Spirochaetes and Yellow Fever, and did humanitarian work in Africa, where he himself succumbed to Yellow Fever and died in 1928.
A Japanese man standing at the statue asked me if I was interested in this man and he told me how he still inspires generations with hope in the face of suffering, including during the recent tsunami that affected his home prefecture.
He told me that Hideyo Noguchi probably would have won the Nobel Prize if he hadn't died at the age of 53 years.
And he'a probably right.

Tokyo National Museum

I saw really scary samuarai swords, 40,000 year old pottery, ancient calligraphy, military armour that looked like Darth Vader, ancient clothes, 500 year old sake bottles and a wealth of everyday materials that span Japanese history. Unfortunately I can't put any photos here so ypu'll have to visit tjis amazing museum yourself.

Handy way to get rid of small change.

In the two weeks here, I've collected so much small change, that I had a plastic bag with a fistful of small value coins in my bag with me. So this donation box outside the Tokyo National Museum was a welcome way to unburden myself of small yen denomination coins.

Cetachean statue, Ueno Park, Tokyo.

This blue whale statue is outside the National Science Museum at Ueno Park, Tokyo.
Here you can see it next to the last of the sakura.
Those children in front of the sakura are junior high school students. Everywhere I have gone, I have seen school students on excursions - without exception.

Natto - Japan's answer to Vegemite/Marmite?

Here's me preparing Natto at breakfast. It's a sticky fermented soy bean that you mix in with some mustard and spiced oil. You then attempt to eat it, with the slime attached, or with some rice. It's quite...um...fragrant!
Yummo!

Test your Japanese!

Can you identify these films?
Good luck!

Main street Shinjuku, Tokyo.

This is the main street of Shinjuku at night - very busy.