yesterday's art

I wasn't expecting to be heading to any art museums but this Grutt pass has really made them accessible to me. Yesterday I went to Ueno to see what there is to see.

In Tokyo, Salaryman and Elementary school kid both text message on the train!
My first stop was the National Museum of Western Art.

I really wanted to see what Japan would have and how Japan would present western art. Well, I was a little let down, I'd have to say, although the collection was small, it was also poorly put up. There were holes in the wall everywhere. Really poorly patched up and shoddily painted. I felt like they could use a lesson from the master house painter My Mom.

Theodore Meets in the Wood the Spectre of His Ancestor Guido Cavalcanti
Oh snap! That horse looks crazy. After passing through this museum I became very aware of how fantastic the Art Institute's collection is, even if it's horribly expensive to get in. You really get a bargain though, because here I would have paid 500Y to see this small museum, but in Chicago, I'd be paying $20 for 15 times as much, and even better pieces. It was an interesting contrast. The goal of this museum was to have Western pieces on view for Japanese artists to be inspired by. The final room, as a tour guide for small children let me and everyone else in the room know, had a Pollock. I'm not one to care for Pollock, but that seemed to be the museum's pride, was this one Pollock. I found this painting by a Japanese artist in more of a western style to be much more interesting.


After that I headed to the National Museum of Nature and Science. I am totally jaded by the Field Museum, but this museum wasn't a tremendous let down. It had a really interesting section on Japanese history, although it was all in Japanese, so I had no idea what was going on.

They had these wax models of Japanese history that were just amazing. Their detail was fantastic. I could've stared at these things for hours and continuously noticed new detail. It was really cool. They also talked about domesticating animals.

Chicken wall!!! Yeaaaaah!!
There was another section devoted to global history. I was really impressed by the layout of these sections. It was really neat.

The museum was FULL OF CHILDREN. They were very loud and it made things... less fun.

But sometimes amazingly awesome. I caught these kids posing for a photo, too bad the lighting was terrible. After that I headed to the Former Tokyo Music School. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it was an important cultural property, and for that it was interesting.

There was also a giant flowering bonsai exhibition in the park.

This cat was trying to tell me to turn around because of this.

This guy wasn't very good at being a circus guy, but he was really trying. He did some diablo tricks and just seemed to be enjoying himself. I watched him for about an hour. He wanted me to stay there because then he wasn't just some freak, he could draw a crowd. It was fun. He did some stupid dice crap and did some awesome chair stuff.
I headed to Ikebukuro after this juggling man to appreciate some cats because I was starting to get mighty lonely.

The top floor of the Ikebukuro Tokyu Hands has a room where you can go hang out with cats. It was fun. I hung out with the laziest, biggest cats I've ever seen.

Lazy mega-cat.

I won't subject y'all to too much of these because there were probably 20 cats in that room. And they were all really miserable.

Ikebukuro at night. I enjoy this anime called DURARARA!! which takes place in Ikebukuro. I enjoyed walking around the same places they walk through in the anime and imagining one of the main characters, Shizuo, lifting vending machines to send them crashing down onto people. I did get a little lost, but it was fun none the less.
My eyelids are droopy today again. I'm still really sick and it's hard for me to get over this cold. I think I'm going to head to Yoyogi park to see what all the ruckus is about (there's someone with a megaphone that I can hear all the way over here). I'd say, I'm maybe four or five blocks away from the park, and there must be something really awesome going on, hopefully with awesome food and awesome sauce. After that I'm off to the Sea Park! Today will be fun!