Big fossils, small fossils, all sorts of fossils

On Monday I decided to take the long awaited trip to Fukui-ken prefectual dinosaur museum I had been planning to go from the get-go. Pretty much first spot to see I settled on.

Waking up I then proceeded to fall asleep again. Christ. Luckily I always leave bit time for mornings so when I woke I still had time to do all I needed to do before heading toward station. I did forget however my camera...Therefore all pictures are taken with my mobile phone. Next trouble came on Sangen-jaya where rather than wait for the express train I was supposed to take I opted to take first train that went to right direction. Local train. The one that stops at every station and my station is quite far. This cost me quite a lot of time. Then on Azamino I managed to hop into train that goes toward Shin-yokohama only to realize midroute I had jumped to the car which was WOMEN ONLY until 9am(and clock was around 8.30am). Bejezus. Guess Japanese women are too polite to point out to foreigners that ”you came to wrong car buddy!”. Next station I hopped out of car and ran to next one. Bejezus. Haste kills! But for my defence I had followed Japanese men to the train and saw another one so wasn't only male in there!

Arriving at Shin-yokohama later than goal had been I was in a bit of rush because if I miss the Shinkansen whole trip could be in jeopardy. From final station there's still going to be long walk, it takes a while to reach that station and museum would be closed at 5pm(last admission 4.30pm) so if next Hikari(Godama trains that stop at every station are likely way too slow) comes late I might not make it in time, or have decent time to look around. Also maybe all Hikari's don't stop at Maibara...

Reaching stairs that took toward platforms, spotting ”505” numbers(my shinkansen was Hikari 505. Numbers are unique so that's good way to identify them) from monitor I knew platform 3 was the target. Escalators however were so crowded I figured I might be able to climb the stairs faster so with sheer desperation I started to climb the ladders as fast as I could. And could not believe my eyes when I realized I was actually outpacing the first guy in escalators who was walking them up. Though when we reached next level my knees were on fire so having outpaced the escalator line I hopped to it and continued walking it on bit more leisure pace. Luckily did get to the Shinkansen on time. Phew! Saved! Thank god the original train had bit waiting time and combined me running through the Shin-yokohama(plus the mad rush at the stairs) I was just about in time to hop to train.

Luckily trip as a whole was relatively simple from Shin-Yokohama it was all the way to Maibara from which I changed to JR train(so still free for me) that took me to Fukui. Incidentally originally I had wanted to avoid Tokyo and be in somewhere smaller and some small place in Fukui sounded like good idea but in retrospect probably better to be near Shinkansen trains!

From Fukui I switched to non-JR train that would take me to Katsuyama. Trip cost 750 yen(so about 6.2 euro's) one way. On my way I marveled again some spectacular mountain views.

Arriving to Katsuyama I started to find my way to the museum. I had maps of the area but had planned to ask from passerbys for bit more detailed description(and practice my Japanese while at it). Just one problem. Not one person in sight!

Well I figured I'll at least start on my own since start didn't seem that hard. First east, then you come into big bridge(so I have instantly idea of am I going to right direction), then on first traffic lights left. After that I wasn't too sure but figured that surely I'll come across SOMEBODY. So there I was walking, taking pictures left and right and wondering how on earth there's nobody here(all in all the place was pretty familiar feeling. Though there's something about these Japanese buildings that makes them somehow different looking. Can't quite point out what it is though. But overall you could transport any of the roads to my town and barring Japanese text and cars that go on left it would not be that unusual sight) when I noticed suddenly there was something painted to the floor. Looked closer and look! Painted small scare foot prints like ones dinosaur had left!

I suddenly started to have suspicion those are actually guide marks to the very museum I am looking. At crossroads looked other roads but not even on the other side of the road were these, just on the footpath I was walking which made the proposition look even more solid. I decided to follow them and after looooong walk straight ahead I spotted plate indicating dinosaurus museum this way. Yey! Then I spotted huge globe I had spotted earlier and had strong suspicion it's part of the museum. Then I spotted statue of t-rex and soon enough was on the gates of the area which contained the museum.

Nice touch those foot prints!

I also got nice little bonus from the trip. Sakura! In Tokyo sakura season is pretty much over but Katsuyama is bit north and more importantly on western side of the mountains in the central Japan so weather is generally colder there(which I could btw feel. Very similar to early spring in Finland) so Sakura season is likely starting and ending later as well. This was one reason why I had timed this trip around half way of April. I was hoping it was late enough that Sakura season in Tokyo has passed but early enough it would still be going on in Katsuyama. Timing was pretty good :)

Museum itself was pretty much filled with stuff you would expect of dinosaur museum. Lots of text describing various aspects, lots of fossils, lots of pictures, souvenir shop(got something to cousins daughter. Let's see what she thinks of this). There were couple ”dolls” of dinosaurus that moved and roared. Front of one there was mother with small baby who was happily waving hand toward the moving roaring head of a dinosaur next to her(I think it was female baby from the clothes). Hahaha. That was cute.

 Replica of the lucy

 Another human ancestor.

On my way back got to see carp streamers. Was bit surprised. These comes in fashion early May(was it 3^rd or 5^th) when children's day(originally boy's day to counterbalance girl's day on 3^rd of march) when there's supposedly(haven't seen it myself obviously so I'm going by what I have read) place is full of carp streamers. Samurai themed stuff is also popular since day is originally boy's day and samurai's are likely fairly popular play themes for Japanese boys.

Tuesday was spent mostly cleaning, washing, meeting with Japanese person and doing bit of this and that. Tomorrow I'll be heading for 3 day Kyoto trip. Don't expect another update in a hurry. Don't even know if I have internet access at the Ryokan I'll be sleeping at.