The rain was really torrential. All day long. To a point where you really do not want to set foot outside. Even in a new city. I got TV, high speed internet, who cares, there’s lots to watch.

But, curiosity won. At least I wanted to go see the Tokyo Metropolitain Museum of Photography, it is a five minute walk from here. It currently runs three major exhibitions, all of them were excellent.

A retrospective on Shimooka Renjō introduced me to the man who brought photography to Japan. He was foremost a painter, but when Japan opened to western contact (after a little canon boat visit of US ships to the bay of Tokyo) he saw his first photo (a daguerreotype to be exact).

Over the years he taught himself how to do it, and became Japans first real photographer, and formed a number of students who went on to become famous photographers.

The tiny pictures on exhibition showed japanese life around 150 years ago, from a number of portraits of obviously wealthy people, traders, warriors, clerks and their families, to a number of craftsmen and workmen, priests, travelers, families. A unique glimpse into the past.

The other major exhibition was about Robert Capa. I had already seen some of his pictures in previous exhibitions, but never a complete retrospective.

The exhibition features a number of pictures from the Spanish civil war and World War II in Europe, notably the liberation of France (and Germany) by American troops.

He was foremost a photographer who went into war zones to report, basically right from the front lines.

His pictures are haunting, so often capturing death and destruction. But also often showing a moment of joy, liberation, freedom…

The museum is in a bigger shopping mall complex, the Yebisu Garden Place. They have a beer museum, as Yebisu was the centre of Japan’s beer brewing.

But I walked into a department store and stumbled over their delicatessen food court.

I think I spent over an hour in there, looking and sniffing and sampling. Unfortunately, most is with meat and fish… but it all looks stunning. Worlds fail me, again.

I got hungry, but to my shame I have to say I walked out with a french onion tart. Delicious. Next to the French bakery was a German stand. They have real Bretzeln and Laugen, a sort of bread I hardly ever find abroad. I’ll sure get some in the next few days, along with some potato salad…

I would have liked to take more pictures of the produce and the people, but it felt a bit awkward, as if saying that it’s all so weird to me, I have to take pictures like in a zoo.

It was still pouring down after that, but I wasn’t ready to go home at 5, so I tested my Suica card and hopped on the rain to Shinjuku Station, of of the biggest in Tokyo.

The metro and trains are easy to navigate. Latin letters, English announcements, color codes, it’s easy. But crowded. The navigation challenge is foremost not to constantly run into people.

From there I navigated through the streets with a lot of umbrellas, the night slowly falling and the neon signs kiting up. I walked around a number of smaller streets with few cars, not really pedestrian zones but quite, and lined with shops.

When the rain got too much I had a Sapporo beer in a little bar, and then went on to roam the streets a bit more, going into CD and electronic shops, supermarkets and department stores.

Until, at one point, your brain just can’t take it all in anymore, and you have a slightly floating feeling. Time to go home to my rice cooker and watch some TV. I passed out pretty fast. Input overload.