I woke up, had some breakfast (complete with salad), and set off into the world. To the very heart of Tokyo to be exact. I spent the afternoon in the area surrounding the Imperial palace. The first stop was Yasukuni-jinja. Its a shrine to the Japanese legions sacrificed in wars since 1869. It is the most controversial shrine in Japan. It was a huge symbol during the nationalist push that preceded WWII. Kamikaze pilots, war criminals, and ordinary Japanese soldiers all have a home here. Aside from a collection of ikebana arrangements and the largest shrine gate I have ever seen, there wasn't anything remarkable about the shrine except for its history.
I walked past a watchtower left over from Edo castle. This led me into the big park called Kitanomaru-koen. There were lots of trees and park-like things. there was also the judo hall left over from the last olympics. I wandered through the park, and though I had no intention of going there, I found myself at the Imperial palace grounds. They let you in the grounds but the actual palace is completely out of sight from pretty much everywhere in Tokyo. There were big walls and a deep deep moat. After a bit of that i headed over to my main destination. The National Museum of Modern Art. Its a smallish museum with four floors. There were some western artists represented there, but mostly it was japanese early modern art. A big part of it might have been western art anyways. I kept walking around thinking, this must be a Matisse, this must be a Pisarro. But it would be some Japanese name I had never heard of. The copying of style was pretty much exact. I wonder if the french artist and the japanese artists were somehow all working together in the same vein or if the Japanese painters just took the french as a direct influence. There were some cool, more traditional style japanese art there, like some long hand scrolls. There were also some pretty awesome print series.
The museum people had me wear a big sticker with a camera on it, like a badge so i could run around and take pictures. I guess they wanted to make sure I had been adequately schooled in the acceptable methods of museum photography. There were also some pretty cool Julian Opie video pieces about Japan. They were based from very traditional Japanese scenes, like the ones you would see in ukiyo-e prints. But they still had elements of modern life in them. There was one of a lake and a bridge, but it was a modern bridge with traffic going over it. You could hear the noise of the cars going by. There was another one of city lights being reflected in water. I think these were my favorite part of the museum.
After the museum I went to Harajuku, because it was sunday and thats when all the crazily dressed kids come to the train station to hang out and look at each other. Unfortunately it was raining. Perhaps it was the rain, or maybe because it was a holiday, but it was a disappointing turnout for kids dressed weird. I did see a few and i tried to take some pictures. There was an alley crammed with shops. It was also crammed with people. Down this street was a shop for every kind of cute, useless thing. It was packed with teenagers buying jewelry and cheap clothes and trinkets. I did some shopping myself. After battling the crowds and the rain for a while, i was tired so I went into a coffee shop to sit around and drink something hot. I was in there for a while and when i came out, someone had stolen my umbrella. I was pissed, because it was still raining... also it was my first experience with Japanese crime (mostly relegated to umbrellas and bicycles). But I guess umbrella stealing is not so bad on the grand scale of things. I discovered the street I thought I was supposed to be on. It was a large tree lined street full of designer shops... fendi, dior, ralph lauren, harry winston.... It was nice to just look in the window. More importantly though, I found some galleries along this street. There was one for a popular japanese artist who paints spunky little cartoon girls. i bought some postcards there. I also found whitespace Tokyo and another little gallery that had some interesting photos of x-rayed bird skeletons. It was nice to see these galleries, and also going to the museum. I feel since I have been to japan, that part of me has been put on the back burner. I didn't realize until I got to Tokyo how much I missed it. I forgot how important it was to me. Since I stopped working at the Portland art museum and since i graduated from school, its just not a world I have much exposure to anymore.
I finished the night off with a trip to Shibuya, where Hatchiko, the famous dog statues is swarmed with people outside the train station. There were lots of people on the street and lots of lights. More excitingly though, I saw more crazy Japanese fashion.
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