Around the world in 180 minutes!

As mentioned below, one of the tourist attractions in the far west of Aichi prefecture is The Little World Museum of Man, a collection of houses and buildings from over 22 countries. Interestingly enough this museum is NOT mentioned in any of my guidebooks, not even the hopelessly comprehensive Lonely Planet. So while it is certainly a tourist trap, its more a Japanese tourist trap than a gaijin tourist trap. Unfortunatly for me, I went on Thursday, a national holiday called "culture day." Many people decided to celebrate by looking at what other cultures had to offer. Luckily for me the place is huge, and the crowds made little impact when just walking around. Of course get in line for bratwurst and you will notice the large number of people present.
Inevitably most of the cultural areas had a shop and/ or a restaurant with the local delicacies for sale. Some even had areas where you could pay 300 yen and dress up in traditional costumes. In the Kerlas village (India) they even had a yoga instructor. And of course a curry shop as well. Many of the buildings are reproductions, but a few are real, including the French farm house from the Alsace, shipped over to Japan and reconstructed!



The beautiful leaves clash a bit with the rainy weather, but it didn't rain too hard, so no major problems.




Almost like home! ;-)




A totem pole and cedar lodge from the Pacific Northwest, very cool. The weather was a good match to say the least.




A Peruvian plantation house. Here the weather is not such a good match!




A house from Bali. Note the intricate carvings, and the general outdoorness of the compound. Certainly NOT native to a culture that lives with cold winters.



A house from Thailand, and this is one of the original structures. One of the few that you couldn't go inside at all, unfortunatly.



Ahh Bavaria. They based their village reconstruction on Garmisch- Partenkirchen. Its fairly authentic looking, now they just need to hire a few Germans to man the restaurant.



The locals, in Alsatian dress. Luckily my paparazzi skills are still in full force, they weren't posing for me! te he he.




I swear in this photo you can't tell it is in Japan. It just looks so wonderously European. Thats the backside of the French Barn and the German chapel in the background.




A Tibetan monastary, high in the hima... hills around Nagoya.

So there is a brief tour of the Little World Museum of Man, there are many other cool buildings and such, but I think this offers a nice teaser.