Two Days, Four Museums

Hello! The rainy season is well and truly upon us now, with the weather over the next few days looking thusly:

Rain, humidity, thunderstorms, and a typhoon. Lovely.

This weekend has been a good one, kicked off with meeting a friend at a birthday party at an Irish Bar with many interesting characters present, and then yesterday after work I went to see Claire perform with her choir, the Tokyo Embassy Choir, as they did a summer concert celebrating the 100th birthday of the composer Leonard Bernstein (of Westside Story fame). Singing a number of his pieces, not limited to Westside Story, it exposed me to music I wouldn't normally listen to, and I had a great time of it! Today has been far more muted, with keeping out of the rain being the main objective (so video games and writing it has been), and I'm not so sure about venturing into a typhoon tomorrow morning to get to university...

Last weekend however was a full on cultural extravaganza! Claire had told me about the Nezu Museum, which is the result of a huge collection of pieces of Japanese and foreign art and artifacts collected by a 19th Century Japanese industrialist and businessman, Nezu Kachiro. I had been meaning to go a few weeks earlier, but the rain prevented me going, and so when I found myself finishing work early on Saturday, I decided to head down. The main exhibition was on Japanese lacquer ware, with some of it dating back 1,000 years. Unfortunately no photography is allowed in the Nezu Museum, but the thing that struck me the most was with one of the smaller exhibitions, on Chinese bronze vessels. Many of them had vine motifs and were for wine - I had no idea that China 500+ years ago had such a wine culture!

What can be photographed at the Museum though is the impressive garden within the grounds.As I arrived late in the afternoon I only had a small amount of time to explore it, but I was able to enjoy the tranquility of the greenspace that is right in Tokyo. There are lots of old statues and sculptures in the garden, as well as a tea house, pond, waterfall, and a surprising number of little trails and tracks.

This Buddha was making serious bank - if you look closely you might see the pile of coins balanced on his head!

Another addition to my PC desktop background collection

I met with Claire that evening for some craft beer (highlight was the Kagua Rouge Special Edition 2017, a 12% ABV Belgian Ale which legitimately smelt of peppered beef; unlike anything I'd ever had before). The other mission of the night was fried chicken waffles, which resonated with Claire on an American level, and with me on a nostalgic for Sweet Mothers Kitchen (a popular brunch spot in Wellington). They were pretty good I thought, certainly better than the Japanese interpretation of other foreign foods (Japanese fish and chips is a largely forgettable affair, and don't get me started on their mince and cheese pies)

Fried chicken + waffle = a tasty formula

Sunday morning I got up reasonably early so as to arrive in Roppongi at 10am; the opening time for most museums. For I had won a couple of tickets through the Japan Times for free admission to three museums as part of the Roppongi Art Night (about which you can read in my previous blog), and decided Sunday was the day I would, in the words of Sir Edmund Hillary, 'knock the bastard off' - by which of course I mean hit every one of the three museums the ticket granted me entry to. Claire accompanied me to a couple she had not yet been to, and so I got a mix of photography, Chinese Imperial Glasswork, and Japanese architecture - not bad for a free ticket I reckon!


The first was 21_21 Design Studio, which was hosting a series of photographic exhibitions. Some of them I found a bit confronting, but in the main exhibition space there were some awesome light painting examples, and some of the best photo stitching I have ever seen. The variety of works was really cool, with no real theme running between, but always good to see a variety of approaches to photography - and also a museum that allows photography inside!

Some incredible photo stitching at play here

The building itself takes concrete and brutalism and makes it quite funky and edgy

Next up was the Suntory Museum of Art, which was showcasing glass from Imperial China. There was an amazing array of colours and styles, with some pieces from 300-400 years ago that would fit perfectly well in a minimalist design catalogue (some fashions never die). Other than the actual pieces, the thing I got that most stuck with me was the knowledge that glass can suffer from a 'disease' known as crizzling - where instabilities in the chemical composition of the glass result in it, over time, absorbing moisture and humidity, getting cloudy and cracked.

I quite enjoyed the reflections going on here, and was able to take a photo akin to one I spent a long time trying to take in a museum in Wellington

Tiny snuff bottles no longer than my middle finger

The final museum of the day was the Mori Art Museum, where I had visited before, once with Claire for the illusion art exhibition and again with my friend Hamish for an exhibition on Final Fantasy. This exhibition was a celebration of Japanese architecture, ranging from highly contemporary designs and buildings to some that are many hundreds of years old. It went into great detail as to the design intricacies that make each one unique, with scale models and architectural mockups of structures and features. Photography was limited to only a few places, but where I could, I did!

This was demonstrating a Japanese architectural feature of interlocking wooden pieces, and showed incredible woodworking skill

A replica of the tea house pioneered by Sen no Rikyu, the 16th Century Japanese credited with developing and mastering the way of Japanese tea making

The thing I enjoyed most of all however was the light/holographic/projection display, Human Scale. It cleverly used lights to create a three dimensional space on a flat canvas, showing how we interact with and conceive of the spaces we inhabit. It was a very cool multimedia display, and anyone who knows me and my photography can attest that I am a sucker for lights/lightpainting, so I spent a semi-inordinate amount of time here. Worth it though.

Having fully satisfied my cultural needs for the day, I headed back and put my feet up (amazing how hard on your feet so many museums is!).

This week at uni has been a long one; rather than the normal three days at Kashiwa, two days off, I was there all week as I had a two day course Weds and Thurs for the whole time. Tuesday night I had a party at my Professor's house with the rest of my seminar group, where we ate lots of nice food and had a good ol' time. This week looks to be a bit less busy, but I have several assignments and reports coming up over the next few weeks so I will be cracking into those properly.

This coming weekend we are having a cocktail party which is something to look forward to, and otherwise I'm looking to hit up a few more craft beer places in the near future - my list of want-to-go places is steadily growing!

Otherwise, not much new to report, all is steady sailing for the moment (long may that last!) So until next time, cheerio!

Troy :)