This morning, Sonia and I headed off to Asakusa for some shopping and sightseeing.  We learned, among other things, that you're no longer allowed to eat soft-serve ice cream while walking around the crowded Nakamise streets that lead up to Sensoji Temple.  We were told rather firmly to remain inside the shop until we had finished our cones.  Apparently, though, freshly toasted senbei rice crackers and ningyo-yaki cakes are still considered safe for ambulatory consumption. 

   After that, we walked along the banks of the Sumida River until we reached Ryogoku.  There, we visited the Tokyo Restoration Memorial Museum, opened in 1930 to celebrate the city's recovery from the 1923 Kanto Earthquake.  I in particular wanted to see Arishima Ikuo's remarkable painting of the disaster, which I wrote about here last year.  It's a stunning work, one that collapses multiple moments from the disaster's unfolding into a single, dizzying canvas.

   The museum itself is a dusty, poorly maintained facility. Some of the paintings on display literally have holes poked through them, but no one seems to care.  The photographs of the earthquake's aftermath are badly yellowed, though they still pack a powerful punch--especially, for us, one of the devastated Nakamise streets in Asakusa.  On the way out of the musuem, I stopped in at the men's room.  Seeing the dilipidated condition of the building, I was expecting the worst in Japanese public toilet facilities.  But, I'm somewhat puzzled to report, the restroom was spectacularly new:  bright tiles, fantastic toilets featuring bidet and all the bells and whistles that the Toto Corporation could manage. 

   Why put all that money into restroom facilities while letting the rest of the museum crumble?  It's a puzzle--just like the new rule about not eating soft-serve while walking in public.  Tokyo, city of unending mystery....