Stuff I saurus - Fukui edition.

After leaving Kyoto we had a brief stop in Fukui.
Fukui is most famous for having discovered some bones in a pit.
They are very chuffed with this and display some of them in the station.

It was a little rainy, but we caught a train to where the bus leaves for the Dinosaur Museum

The Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum is clearly just a way for the government to disguise the funds that it pours into the operating costs of their rainbow generator.

And what pray tell is your doctorate in Dr Raptor.
rainbowology?

The museum itself is spread over 3 floors.
You descend this escalator to the bottom and work your way back up.

This animatronic T-Rex was too big to check hotel guests in.

They have a selection of bones.

And animatronic stuff.

5 unique dinosaurs were found in the abandoned quarry out the back of the industrial plant.
They have very imaginative names. This is Fukuisaurus.  

This is Fukuiraptor. 

This is what scientists image Fukuiraptor might have looked like greeting hotel guests.

There was a display of rocks, most of which are destroyed to provide the colors for the rainbow generator.

The view from the 2nd floor looking down on the bones on the 1st floor.

A video about dinosaurs presented by the museum mascot,
which is some sort of weird bearded chestnut.

The second best thing in the gift shop is the dinosaur snow globes.

The best thing was the tape dispensers used to tape wrapping paper around gifts purchased in the shop.
Disappointingly they didn't seem to be available to buy.

Fukui station has animatronic models of the 5 Fukui dinosaurs out the front.

They don't all have Fukui in the name.
One is named Koshisaurus, Koshi being the old name for the area now known as Fukui.

Animatronic Fukuiraptor and Fukuisaurus showdown.

Fukui dinosaur mascots.

The Fukui Dinoheart as seen out the shinkansen tracks window.

 

The next morning we visited Nijo castle

Nijo castle is a flatland castle, so it's mostly walls and a couple of low buildings. 

The gate on the inner walls.

This is about as tall as the inner buildings get.

There is a nice garden inside, albeit very small.

And this rest house where feudal lords held sake tastings for tourists as early as 1608

the moat

steps up to the top of the wall

the view down from same

Afterwards we went to visit the tranquil bamboo forest of Arashiyama

well it would have been tranquil if not for all the people

No seriously, it was the weekend and every man in Kyoto and his shiba inu were there.

Towards the evening I took Mel to see where I had spent the month working from Kyoto

We walked along the canal

It was nice, but it's better in spring

We popped in to visit Asaki at Story coffee

We also attended a meeting of the language group and introduced them to the wonders of Tim Tams and Vegemite.

Kyoto - in which I get a concussion

After Osaka we moved to Kyoto

We stayed in a Machiya, which is a traditional townhouse, first rented on AirBnB during the Heian period (794 AD) 

Machiya are combination home and place of business.

This is the entryway to the house part,

traditional futons for bedding.

this modern bathroom was probably retrofitted as part of the meiji restoration

A nice big wooden tub

With death stairs, angled to ensure anyone that fell down them definitely broke their neck.

A little couch with the "welcome to our death house, here's how the aircon works" manual

kitchenette

You can't tell from the perspective in this photo, but the chair is positioned just under the 5 foot high ceiling beam so you can concuss yourself when you stand up.

This room was at the end where the roof sloped down from the 5 ft door way to about 2 foot of the floor at the far wall. The artwork is a traditional method of saying "don't use this room, you'll give yourself a concussion"

upstairs had a shower

and toilet

You can't tell from the perspective in this photo, but the chair and table has been repositioned away from the 5 foot high ceiling beam so you can concuss yourself when you stand up and turn your head to walk away from the table.

This overlooks the entry way

this is the door to the garden

garden

lawn furniture (sans lawn)

the work space was a fabric "weavery" (Mel insists it's a real word) 

it was apparently active (but not very noisy)

we were there on the weekend so it was unused

one person came in on monday morning just as we wer leaving so we didn't get to see it in operation

punch cards that contain old computer code (or fabric patterns, not sure)

It's weavalicious

(For those keeping score at home, in this venue I cracked my skull into doorways and low ceiling beams seven times, a current high score)