April 24

So we're obviously way behind on this blog, having been home for a while now. Lexi has decided that I should finish the last few days since she wasn't feeling well at the time, and doesn't remember them too well. And we have to finish it because we have a special treat for anyone who follows it all the way to the end.

Anyway, we started off Saturday by going to the Osaka Human Rights Museum. The train that my iPod told us to take was a bit off the beaten path. In fact, the train station we got off at was the only station we saw that was entirely unmanned:


But of course it turned out that there was a much better, and less scary-looking way to get there.

The museum deals with issues of discrimination against various groups of people in Japan. These included Koreans, Okinawans (indigenous people of the islands south of mainland Japan), the Ainu (indigenous people living in Hokkaido), the Burakumin, victims of Minamata disease, women, and the disabled. Probably the most interesting of these groups to us was the Burakumin, who were outcasts at the bottom of the caste system of the Edo period. They were considered contaminated by death in their professions, being butchers, leather workers, grave diggers, etc. Even today, their descendants face some degree of discrimination and stigma.

After the museum, we went to Amerikamura, which is an area full of hip used clothing stores and hip youngsters sporting interesting fashions. It supposedly got its name from shops selling goods imported from America.