The museum was organized by geography, so there was a large room on Oceania, another room on the Americas, (you get the idea), etc. and then a room on Ainu culture (that's the native culture of Hokkaido (the large northern island of Japan)).
Ainu culture is fascinating! The people look more caucasian (but apparently aren't) with lots of body hair. Women used to have tattoed mustaches. And the Ainu people practiced a bear cult! They would capture a bear cub and rear it, sometimes even nursing the cub. When the cub was a few years old, they would kill it in a festival, and eat the meat, and somehow also worship the dead bear.
The last room also really caught our interest - the exhibit on mainland Japanese culture (of course!). A couple of things in particular -
this large paper float for the Nebuta festival. The festival is held in a couple different cities in August, and floats like these are paraded through town to get rid of the spirits that cause sleepiness. The floats are lit up from the inside and are really beautiful!
I also took note of these traditional straw mittens and boots. Somehow I don't think I would have been very happy to be a Japanese person hundreds of years ago.
After the museum, we wandered through a plum tree grove where lots of people were taking photos of the blossoms, picnicking, and working on their laptops. (You can see it's still cold here - everyone is bundled up, but that doesn't stop the diehard plum blossom enthusiasts from sitting on the cold ground under them.)
This park also contained a contender for the world's ugliest sculpture. We couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be...
Back at Osaka station, we found a store selling cookies! How exciting!! They were a bit expensive, but sooo worth it! I opted for the chocolate oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies instead of the tomato cookies. At least there weren't any seaweed or fish cookies... 
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