Lousy, just lousy, with Culture

Believe it or not, I've done more in Tokyo than get drunk and eat donuts.  Festivals!  Shopping!  Nieghborhooding!  And museums! 

We've been to a mind-bending range of museums on this trip.  From the janky Mongolian joints featuring historical murals painted by 5 year olds, to the slick as hell, super specific and sometimes imposing halls of Korea, I'd say we're becoming experts.  Here's a brief rundown of those we've made it to in Tokyo:

On Friday afternoon, we hit the Van Gogh exhibit at the National Art Center in Akasaka.  The building is tremendous modern wavy wooden greatness with sessy lighting and a million uncomfortable looking but comfortably sitting chairs.  The exhibit was the most extensive I've seen and the heavy hitter pieces were on loan from Amsterdam.  There was a digital recreation of Room at Arles which was an interesting and scientific only-in-Japan experience.  What was fascinating about viewing the paintings with an all-Japanese audience was their tendency to read all information presented, listen to the audio guide, then check off the pieces as they were viewed.  This happened in silence while shuffling past the work in a line.  I saw hardly anyone hang out for a second to see the detail of what was on the wall.  Far more orderly than a visit to a museum in NYC, but seemingly a bit hasty considering what we were looking at!  I'm sure they were glad to see the back of us as we likely interrupted the flow, but jayz, slow and smell the Irises folks.

Sword Museum in Shinjuku - We hit up the sword museum with Ed's parents during their recent visit.  Its in a residential part of Shinjuku, way off the beaten path.  The museum is basically one room of deconstructed swords from olden times.  Its an impressive collection but if you don't know shit about swords, its kind of hard to understand what you're looking at.  You see, they gave us a booklet in English that explains the forging process and the historical importance and probably some other stuff.  But we smartly skipped the literacy test and headed straight for the main event.  We spent the next hour hypothesizing about what we were seeing rather than having any actual idea.  I figured I'd do the reading in post and then apply the knowledge retroactively, but I've since done neither the reading nor the reflecting and now I just remember a lot of metal in glass cases.  Also, there was a camera crew there and we may have been on Japanese TV.  Hopefully they didn't get any of our astute observations (my, what a pretty hilt?) on film.

Yebisu Beer Museum in Ebisu.  I'm counting this as a museum even though there may have also been a place to drink beer where we spent a touch more time than in the actual exhibit.  Butbutbut, the museum part is extra cool because on display are advertisements and packaging for Yebisu beer dating back to the 1890's.  There are drawings of the old German-style beer halls that were crazy popular in Tokyo in the early 20th century and, of course, plastic food to illustrate the types of bar snacks people served back then (lots of tiny fishes).  Plus, several brews to try.  When we were in Suzhou, China, we went to a silk museum and one of the exhibits was a series of rooms set up to look like a silk farm.  In the harvesting room there were huge bamboo baskets of silk worms.  Thousands of them.  And they were alive and albino and so very creepy and I had bad dreams that night.  All I'm saying is that if I'm going to learn how something is made, I'd prefer that the finale is beer drinking instead of live worm viewing. 

Mori Museum in Roppongi.  The current exhibit, Sensing Nature, is one of the most tightly curated and enjoyable museum experiences I've had.  There isn't a weak point in the show.  Even the video art (sorry dear friend who majored in that) is beautiful and inspiring and 100% watchable.  There are funny moments and serene moments and visually stunning moments and one spooky moment.  I gush.  Also, we watched the sun set from the sky deck/helipad, which has 360 degree views.  Not too shabs.


Edo Tokyo Museum in Ryugoku.  I didn't actually go with Ed and his parents because its, like, 7 floors and I've been before.  But, I'm still going to post about it because Ed went and since we're life partners I get half credit for stuff he does (and vice versa).  If you want to learn about the history of Japan and are too lazy to read Shogun, this museum teaches through countless dioramas and important artifacts.  Really terrific if you're in to that sort of thing.

Tobacco and Salt Museum in Shibuya.  We did this one with Jenny and the highlight was definitely the poster displays (Like the clicky flipping kind from a poster-art store in a mall in the 80s - who's with me? Trumbull? Anyone?) full of old cigarette packs.  Before all the bad PR, smoking was an artform and except for all the beautiful people doing it, nothing about it was more glamorous than the packaging.  We especially enjoyed the limited edition packs produced for the Olympics.  Nothing says sporty....

Off to batten the hatches.  Typhoon #14 is a dooz.