Two of the best kids museums in Tokyo....

Monday was a national holiday so Daddy-ebi was off work, rather last minute we decided to head into Tokyo and go to the Toy Museum. We have been here before but it was quite a while ago and we had all 4 grandparents and a cousin in tow.

The Toy Museum is housed in an old elementary school and I can't say enough things about it, there are several rooms to explore, the staff are super friendly and encourage young and old to join in and play and are happy to explain how to play something or show you how to use something. The first room as you enter has a display of 'good toys' these are all toys that have won awards and recognised as been a good toy such as this one and there are several of these toys out to play with. The next room is an exhibit room for toys from all over the world, they change the displays often and this time it was toys from Russia.

The final room on this floor is probably the most popular, it is the forest room and all the toys are wooden, it is fantastic, it smells great too. There are puzzles, a ball pool, a big doll house, musical instruments, a baby corner, train tracks and trains, building blocks... all made from wood, if I were rich, Ebi-kuns bedroom would look like this!

Downstairs there is a room where you can eat lunch, at the weekends and holidays they have a little cafe service but your best bet is to take your own, any excuse to make a cute bento if you ask me! Plus another room that rotate the toys to play with.

Upstairs there are more rooms, one is traditional Japanese toys, another has science toys and musical instruments and a third has board games and puzzles that you can play with. The final room is the craft and project room where you can go and make something, not only that, the corridor is lined with things to play with too!

We ended up staying until about 3.30pm then headed back to the station. At the entrance of the station is the free fire museum, friends had recommended it to us so we decided to go in there too. Again I was really impressed, the explanations were in Japanese and English and the English actually made sense, anyone living in Japan will know what I mean about that! Ebi-kun - like any small boy loved it, they had a special thing going on where you could get on a fire engine and have your photo taken, they also have mini outfits for the kids to try on and lots interactive displays.

We stayed until the threw us out and then headed home, stopping off at Omiya station for a bite to eat, one fun filled day!

If you want to see even more pictures, pop over to my Flickr site and if you want more info on the museum, check out the post I wrote about it last time here, all the info you need is at the bottom of the post.