I'm clearly the kind of person who goes to museums when I don't know what to do with myself.
Yesterday (Friday) was the first day of my six-day vacation from work (more on which will come in a future post). My mom was able to fly down for a visit, but since she wasn't arriving until the evening I had a whole day to kill before going to pick her up at Haneda airport. The first task was, of course, to clean my entire apartment (floors, toilet, bathroom, general tidying, laundry, and taking out the garbage) but that task aside I still had quite a bit of time to myself.
So in the early afternoon I found myself wandering around Omotesando (again) looking for something to do. It was nice to leisurely just wander about, poking my head into any of the cute (expensive) shops that caught my eye. Eventually I found myself outside the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art and decided to check it out.
The building itself is a very interesting concrete structure designed by Mario Botta, and the architecture was almost more interesting (to me) than the current exhibit on display: "Big Sky Little Moon" by Barry McGee and Clare Rohas.
The exhibit, which spanned all four floors of (admittedly small) gallery space the museum possessed, was largely composed of graffiti-esque faces and bold patterns painted on common objects like glass bottles, paper-mache vases, and surfboards. While aesthetically pleasing, it was the sort of contemporary art that made me go "I am clearly missing the larger social commentary intended here." Nonetheless, it's nice to feel cultured.
I then picked up my mother from Haneda and we spent the night at my apartment before getting up at an early (but reasonable) hour to take the bullet train from Tokyo to Kanazawa. We had lunch at curio, which remains one of my favorite coffee shops and cafes, ever, and then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Higashi Chaya district.
The architecture of this traditional tea house/geisha district remains as stunning as ever, as does the neighboring river.
Tomorrow I've more plans for us to wander around outdoors, despite the unpleasant heat. Hopefully we won't get sunburnt!
Yesterday (Friday) was the first day of my six-day vacation from work (more on which will come in a future post). My mom was able to fly down for a visit, but since she wasn't arriving until the evening I had a whole day to kill before going to pick her up at Haneda airport. The first task was, of course, to clean my entire apartment (floors, toilet, bathroom, general tidying, laundry, and taking out the garbage) but that task aside I still had quite a bit of time to myself.
So in the early afternoon I found myself wandering around Omotesando (again) looking for something to do. It was nice to leisurely just wander about, poking my head into any of the cute (expensive) shops that caught my eye. Eventually I found myself outside the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art and decided to check it out.
The building itself is a very interesting concrete structure designed by Mario Botta, and the architecture was almost more interesting (to me) than the current exhibit on display: "Big Sky Little Moon" by Barry McGee and Clare Rohas.
The exhibit, which spanned all four floors of (admittedly small) gallery space the museum possessed, was largely composed of graffiti-esque faces and bold patterns painted on common objects like glass bottles, paper-mache vases, and surfboards. While aesthetically pleasing, it was the sort of contemporary art that made me go "I am clearly missing the larger social commentary intended here." Nonetheless, it's nice to feel cultured.
I then picked up my mother from Haneda and we spent the night at my apartment before getting up at an early (but reasonable) hour to take the bullet train from Tokyo to Kanazawa. We had lunch at curio, which remains one of my favorite coffee shops and cafes, ever, and then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Higashi Chaya district.
The architecture of this traditional tea house/geisha district remains as stunning as ever, as does the neighboring river.
Tomorrow I've more plans for us to wander around outdoors, despite the unpleasant heat. Hopefully we won't get sunburnt!
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