This weekend was the Kanazawa festival for Obon. Obon is a national Japanese festival (festival isn't quite the right word, and neither is holiday but it's the best I've got) where you visit your family grave and pray to your ancestors, leaving flowers, incense, and occasionally their favorite items. The dates of Obon vary by location: in Kanazawa it was this weekend, just outside of Kanazawa and most other places in Japan it's in August. Very confusing. But either way, Obon is a holiday of remembering your ancestors and showing them appreciation and respect.
This is the Kosugi family grave. The little wooden placards hanging from the metal bar have the names of the people who visited the grave on them--my host mother was kind enough to also include my name.
A view of the rest of the graveyard. Despite the on-off rain there was a constant stream of people entering and exiting the grave.
From this, I completely switched gears and went to the 21st Century Museum for most likely the last time. There were a slew of new exhibits/ exhibits I hadn't seen before because I didn't buy a ticket for the non-free areas, and I wanted to get the most out of the museum.
This was a garden of plants (fake, I think?) in a cage in the middle of a white room. There was no glass...but you could see your reflection. I think there had to be a mirror somewhere, but I don't know how because you could see through it...terribly puzzling.
These were sideways staircases. There were doors on the sides that you could enter (much like you were entering a new landing of stairs) and walk all around in.
View from the inside.
Some nice Italian man took my photo.
Three sideways elevators, also with mirrors making the insides look like they continued on forever.
Clouds etched into panels of glass. From the front it looked like an ethereal, incredibly realistic cloud but from the side it's just layered panels of glass.
This was easily my favorite piece, but it's also the hardest to explain.
You enter into this dark hallway, and you just see a strip of light on the ground, where there's a puddle. In the puddle is the reflection of a row of buildings. The light changes as "time" passes, fading from morning to evening, night, and then morning again. Occasionally water drips down into the puddle. It was just really cool to be standing there, looking at the strip of water and feel like some sort of giant...
I crouched down to get a look at the projection of the buildings.
This is the weirdest one of all. In one of the legitimate working bathrooms is an alter to bodily fluids. The lights change color, and there's three crystals. A soundscape of birds, water etc. is overlayed with a voice celebrating bodily fluids (blood, semen, water, pee etcetc you get the point) of all kinds. It's called "You Renew You" because bathrooms are a central place of rejuvenation, supposedly? I leave that interpretation up in the air...
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