That’s me eating an ‘American Dog’ purchased from 7-11 while standing across the street from Lawson (on the right) with Fuji in the background. Apparently a TikTok video made taking photos of Lawson with Fuji looming over it the thing to do, and there’s lines of Chinese tourists attempting just that. I snapped this one quickly as we strode past.
Our destination was a place called the ‘Nostalgic Toys Museum’ but was actually a showcase of a Japanese celebrity collector. While much of it were toys, there were other items as well including magazines, records and movie posters. Most of it was very old, but it was well presented and a fascinating (but small) museum.
The staircase art is handdrawn using markers directly onto the white wall by an artist named Nobumasa Takahashi. It may have been the best part of the entire museum!
Apparently it was done freehand without planning and took 1.5 years. It’s a massive piece that spans the entire staircase and you could spend hours examining the details.
The guy that owns the collection is currently an appraiser for Antiques Roadshow Japan, and is well-known for his collection of old tin toys. The bulk of the collection were examples of these, ranging from simple figurines to space toys and mechanical ones such as this infamous monkey.
The highlight for us was a case containing dozens of the worst Mickey Mouse stuffed toys we have ever seen. They were deformed and evil-looking and it’s hard to imagine any child being happy with them!
The description says these are known as ‘spider Mickeys’ by collectors (due to their spidery limbs) and were made by a British company in the mid 20th century. Apparently Walt Disney was so horrified by them he prevented them being exported and they are therefore very collectible today!
We laughed so hard at how awful these were that I almost coughed out a lung. Today’s blog title was my exclamation; it’s difficult to believe any factory could produce licensed toys of this low caliber today.
It was a good museum, although I think only truly nostalgia for the centenarians amongst us. For my toy nostalgia, I still prefer the retro shops in Akiba and Nakano!
Next we stopped at a small gemstone museum (both of these are right on the lakefront near our hotel) and looked at pretty rocks for a while.
They had a great collection and went into exhaustive detail about how the stones are formed, coloured and cut. I liked that most cases included an unfinished stone as well as cut versions.
That gigantic quartz crystal behind kls is real and weighs over a tonne! This part of Japan used to be famous for cut crystal and the museum had examples of tiny stones with elaborate scenes carved into them. Apparently they used to be popular in kimono sashes and hair clips, but the skills died out decades ago.
This afternoon will be more rest and relaxation and then an early start back to Tokyo tomorrow morning. The hot springs have worked and we’re both mostly better, and we’re also looking forward to the warmer weather back in the capital 🙂