Basho
If you are a decent, literate human, you obviously love Basho, one of the greatest poets who ever lived. In the area of Tokyo where his adult home once stood, there is a Basho museum that is heavily under advertised.If you are traveling to Japan, absolutely love Basho, already know a great deal about him, and have a Japanese interpreter, by all means stop by for a few minutes. Otherwise, skip it. It's hard for something that literally only cost about $1 (100 yen) to be a waste, but this was close. A major disappointment.
The museum, what there was of it, is apparently run by the local city ward, which explains the shittiness of it. It contained no original Basho works. The only authentic thing in the whole museum was the stone frog he much loved. I spent over 30 minutes there, but that was too much. Simply not much to see or do, but it's nice to say I went. You can collect a few stamps to prove you were there and spend a minute admiring the nice garden they have, ...but don't expect much else.
The worst thing about the museum is the location. We had to take the train and subway to get there, and the nearest station is a few blocks away. The station itself must be underground about 3 stories, because you have to walk up a tremendous amount of stairs just to reach the surface. Also, I was carrying extra bags with me because I had to catch a plane later. To make matters worse, I could not get a seat on the train, so I spent about 3 hours standing and walking while overloaded with bags.
My shoulders and back and calves were burning, and the stairs and long subway tunnels just kept coming.
We only had about an hour and a half left to visit the electronics district to pick up something neat for my dad. We had to switch trains, walk for blocks, and get on a new train just to get to the district. Then we had to walk around carrying all my bags. By the time we finished shopping, I could barely even stand.
Our day was coming to an end, we were rushing to get from place to place, our nerves were frayed because the wife did not like my selection of places to visit on my last day, and my whole body hurt from walking. On top of all this, ...I knew I just had a few hours left with her.
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