すみだ水族館 Sumida Aquarium

Arriving at Skytree Town.

 
On a hot afternoon a few weeks ago, little dude and I headed over to Tokyo Skytree Town to visit the Sumida Aquarium.  Japan has a wealth of aquariums, and this one was quite lovely. It was about the same cost as the Sunshine City Aquarium, and had a fantastic variety of jelly fish as well as a great penguin habitat. I think the fish at Sunshine were a bit greater in variety, but this aquarium had a huge central tank, complete with a gigantic eel and a sizable shark. The Sumida Aquarium also had a neat kids activity area where little dude could take a break from the crowd, sit at a kids sized table, and color a penguin postcard.

 Entering the aquarium!

 The lovely and calming aesthetic of water and water species is so appealing to me.

 Jellies!

 Tiny jellies!

In addition to a standard jellyfish exhibit, this aquarium also had a variety of tanks with small exotic jellies, in particular, we were really into the long-haired varieties, although some of the chubby ones were pretty cool too. They also had a small interactive lab area where we saw day old super tiny jellies (like pin-head tiny), and learned about how and what they eat when they are so small.

 Learning.

 The giant central tank with the shark. He got quite the reaction when he swam right by us, teeth exposed and all!

 Fishy cuteness.

The highlight of our visit was the penguin habitat. We spent a serious amount of time by the giant tank, and little dude wore himself out running back and forth along the stretch of tank, chasing the penguins as they swam. I learned that 25% of the world's captive penguins are in Japan- an interesting bit of trivia!

 

 Chillin'

 Dive!

 Penguin love.

Back by the big tank one more time.

After a long afternoon at the aquarium we stopped for ice cream at Skytree Town, and then took the Tobu Spacia-sen part way home. This train has been on little dude's train wish list since arriving in Japan, as it was one of the first toy trains he received. The train goes a long distance up to the north, and is meant as a long distance train, but we just rode it from Skytree to the next stop, about 10 minutes. It was exciting enough to check it off the train bucket list, and was the perfect end to a great day.

 Tobu Spacia-sen. Another train goal met!

Looking back at Skytree from the train.

National Museum of Western Art 国立西洋美術館

Entering the museum.

Over the weekend, little dude and I spent a rainy Saturday afternoon wandering through the National Museum of Western Art in Ueno Park. Generally, I visit museums for work or research, so to go to an art museum purely for fun was a treat for me. Sprout loves abstract art, so he was excited for the twentieth century galleries. 

 Netherlandish Christian art.

Galleries.

Joan Miro, 1953. The hands down favorite.

Hydrangeas アジサイ

Tsuyu, or rainy season, is approaching its end (I hope!). The humidity can be unbearable, and the consecutive days of heavy rain are arduous, especially when we walk everywhere, and depend on sunny days to dry our laundry. Hydrangeas are a symbol of tsuyu, and one of the things that helps to keep spirits up in the face of difficult weather. There are seemingly endless varieties of the flowers here, and in amazingly vibrant colors. A few weeks ago we walked through the hydrangeas at Asukayama Park, taking in their beauty while a light rain fell.

Proletariat Art at Kichioji

 

Last week I saw a fantastic show out at the Kichioji Art Museum on social movements and the proletariat in mid-twentieth century Japanese art. The exhibition was small, but powerful.

 

 

The show was titled "We Are Real 1920s-1950s From Proletariat Art to Reportage" and included four galleries packed with political art, art which attempted to raise the status of the worker, and art related to war.

 

 

Not only were the selected artworks powerful in their message, but the way in which the pieces were closely placed, including cases of published materials, made for an intense experience.

 

 

After viewing the exhibit, I wandered back to the station through the many vibrant, lively shopping streets in the area, pausing for a fantastic piece of black-tea flavored cake at a sunny little shop.

 

描かれたチャイナドレス Chinese Style Dresses at the Bridgestone Museum of Art

 

Museum exterior.

After all the work of the past few weeks, there are a few exhibitions around Tokyo that I want to catch up on, so on Wednesday I started into doing just that by heading to the Bridgestone Museum of Art to see Chinese Style Dresses. The exhibition included paintings of women dressed in Chinese style clothing, as produced by Japanese artists between 1910 and 1940. This is a fascinating group of artworks that address issues of gender, colonialism, orientalism, power, and fashion in what was a tumultuous time in Asia. The Taisho period saw a boom of interest in things Chinese, much of which was linked to the new Japanese colonies of Taiwan and Manchuria. Seeing these fascinating paintings together in two large galleries, and accompanied by a small showing of historic costumes was truly a treat.

 

 

Gallery one. Kume Tamijuro's Chinese Dance from 1920 is visible at the left. This painting is my new obsession. 

 

 

Gallery two- historic costume juxtaposed with the paintings.

 

 

The catalogue!   

発表 Research Talk

 

Well, folks, it is done. I completed a one hour talk on my research (in Japanese). It was hard, it was painful, but it is now over. I can't express what a huge relief it is to have this in the past! For weeks I've been writing and editing my text, about 12,000 characters total (I think about 30 pages if it were double-spaced English), which took me about an hour and ten minutes to read. I presented my work at the kenkyukai (research group) at the research institute, and received some really great and helpful feedback. For me, this was one of the most challenging tasks of my academic career thus far- I'm comfortable with speaking about my research in English, conducting research in Japanese, and speaking casually in Japanese, but having to present at a professional forum requires a different type of language, one which I don't often have to use. In any case, I had editing help from a few wonderful people, and in the end, it is finished! As is the standard for the monthly research forums, we all raised a glass for a congratulatory kampai when all was said and done. This beer tasted so fantastic. I'm sure it will take a few days to work all the stress out of my system, and as I always do, I keep thinking about the mistakes (why do we do this to ourselves?!?), but for now, a huge amount of pressure is off of my shoulders. Here's to a summer of feeling accomplished!

 

The Perfect Sunday Outing in Tokyo: Meiji Shrine and A to Z Cafe

 Entering the shrine.

Last week, my dear friend Emily came from the States for a visit. On her first day here, we headed down to the Harajuku-Omotesando area of Tokyo for what may be my perfect Tokyo outing: the Meiji Shrine and A to Z Cafe. We exited Harajuku Station with all the cool kids and hit up the shrine first- perfectly beautiful, verdant, and calm, despite the throngs of Sunday tourists. 

Shrine gate.

The Meiji Shrine is where Emperor Meiji (r. 1868-1912) is enshrined. It is also a huge shrine in the middle of Tokyo, includes two museums dedicated to Emperor Meiji, and is a large green space, making it a popular site with a variety of visitors. As it relates to the Imperial, and is a lovely natural escape from the concrete expanses of Tokyo, it is one of my favorite spots in the city.

 A small waterfall along the path.

 Pals.

 Sake barrels as donated by breweries.

 Little dude exhibiting proper ritual behavior at the shrine.

 Little dude goofing around (e.g., not exhibiting proper ritual behavior).

 The main area of the shrine.

 We saw a wedding!

 Shrine doors.

 On our way out.

After a bit of walking through Harajuku, and a quick lunch stop, we headed over to the Omotesando area, one subway stop away. If it had not been raining, and us not in the company of a tired-of-walking kiddo, the stretch between the shrine and Omotesando is a nice 15-20 minute stroll along streets filled with beautiful high end retail- in some ways a museum of contemporary material culture combined with the adjacent Harajuku fashion (read: youthful hip). Ultimately, our destination in Omotesando was the A to Z Cafe, which is a project of the artist Yoshitomo Nara.

 Seated.

 Sparkling wine and pumpkin coconut cake. Dreamy.

 Artist kid in a cafe created by an artist who addresses kids. Woah.

Yoshitomo Nara, long a favorite of mine, creates work that has a certain child-like quality to it. While many of his artworks are somewhat disturbing, others focus on the emotions of childhood, and the childhood experience. So, it was completely appropriate that little dude went straight for his blank-page book with his crayons. 

 

Lighting by the cafe entrance.