Going Koma-Toys.

Oh dopey me went and forgot my phone at work on Friday night so on Saturday I went to retrieve it. Since I was already late for bridge, I decided to visit the 東北歴史博物館 or Tohoku History Museum in nearby Tagajo.









Before entering the building, one can see the Farmhouse of the Konnos, built in mid-Edo and moved here from Kitakami-Machi. Not overly impressive but you have to admire the thatched roof. There is also an archway to the garden with a blossoming cherry tree and a huge pond with duckies.






















In addition to lots of cool historical stuff, it starts off with a big skull of
ヤギュウ, a type of extinct Asian Bison and a picture of ナウマンゾウ (a mammoth known as Nauman's Elephant) also demised.
















Here is a recreation of an ancient hut with a cute barking dog to ward off intruders like me.


Tomb in Japanese is 古墳 (kofun) which appropriately sounds an awful lot like coffin. This is a representation of a dude buried with all his goodies and if you are at all interested in the History of the Kofun or Yayoi periods, that link is highly recommended.









A very nifty pillar and a few monolithic monuments inscribed in Sanskrit. (Sorry I can't translate it, but I only studied Latin.)
















This mural is merely magnificent.








After I indulged in all things historical, I discovered an exhibition of old wooden toys. Mainly tops & wobbly things, they are SO cool, I took pictures of almost all of them. (Top is コマ (koma) by the way, thus the reason behind the post's title.)




































































































































I ended my day there in an interactive Children's Centre where one can
weave, draw stuff or just play with a variety of cool toys.






















While there, I caught a mini-movie hosted by a カキ (persimmons) named コロリン (Coralin) who taught us local history, but I really bombed on the trivia portion.

In summation, a great little museum with lots of funky features, I'd recommend putting it on your agenda someday. There's a special exhibit about pottery called "Message from the earth"...Can you dig it? I knew that you could.








To top off my day, on the train home I espied this ad for gum that is just VERY disturbing.