Aoi Matsuri and Lost in Transition

I wanted to see the Aoi Matsuri. It happens only once a year in one place and involves both Kyoto and the Heian Age. I swore to myself that I would go, even if I had to skip afternoon classes (nothing will ever allow me to skip my Japanese classes--I'll miss so much if I even skip one class!).

So I went.

I managed to have the best timing ever, exiting the station right as the parade was passing. There was a huge turn out--the thinnest part of the crowd was four people thick! It was also super sunny and I swear I could see people steaming--I can only imagine what the parade participants were feeling!

Since I arrived when the parade arrived, I was at the back of the crowd and at a disadvantaged place for photos. I tried my best though, even if I ended up with an inordinate amount of photos of the back of random strangers' heads.

So many people

Look at that awesome hat

And the birds of prey were circling as usual

What's this coming down the lane?

Beautiful women with sunshade!

Some important lady in a palanquin?

And now, women on horses!

LOOK. AT. HER. ROBES. Aren't they gorgeous?

This is the main woman of the show--the princess--wrapped up in 12 layers of kimono. She must have been dying inside, but you couldn't tell by her face. She's the main hero of the shrine ceremony as well.

After the parade headed to the shrine where htey would preform the ceremony, I meandered after. I didn't see anything (there were too many people), so instead I walked around the perimeter of the shrine and listened to the sounds of the flutes and the gongs.

I may have gotten lost, but I hold fast to the philosophy of "You're not lost until you're late" so I had a pleasant time.

I love Kyoto

And look at what is inscribed upon the walls of the train station

Look familiar?

I was schediuled to meet Sara (of A Tale of Two Sarahs fame), but there was a snafu involving wrong trains, dead cell phones, and confusing Japanese that led me to going to an exhibit on Heian Japan at the Kyoto National Museum alone. I decided to go to the exhibit because a) I love the Heian Age and b) Okaasan's parents gave me two tickets for free They've been doing htis for a while (I think they're members and getting this as a part of their member package or something), and I'm very grateful towards them. Anyway, the exhibit was a nice, if not a bit boring towards the beginning, and I headed back to the train station where I was run down by Sarah who had been waiting to apologize for being late (while I frantically apologized for not waiting longer). Thus we rode the train home together and then went and made purikura to document our story.

Tokyo - Museum Madness

Today I gained my zen back—Isa and I spent the entire day museum hopping. And, oh, how much fun that was!

We started off by walking to Tokyo Daigaku (often called Tokyo University or Todai) because Isa wanted to see smart boys (Todai is the best school in Japan, you see). Unfortunately, it was break and thus, no boys.

On the way there, I saw this sign. "Bear Medic Corporation" I don't know about you, but if I was a patient, I probably wouldn't want a bear as a doctor....

After there we walked to the Tokyo National Museum—and it was glorious! Spring is usually known for its cherry blossom viewing, so the museum put on a special cherry blossom viewing exhibit—it was like a treasure hunt! In each of the main gallery rooms (13) there were special objects related to sakura in some way inserted in. And once you found them, you went and got an embossed stamp on a pamphlet.

Sakura manhole cover

Sakura Exhibit Sign

Boston Museum of Fine Arts Traveling Exhibit Sign

Stamp pamphlet

Stamper

I talked to one of the docents (and boy was she surprised I could speak Japanese!) and I was telling her how awesome I thought the exhibit was, she told me that if we got all the stamps, at the end we’d get a pretty, little sakura button.

Of course I got it. What did you expect? They combined my love of pink, buttons, and museums. Of course I'd get it.

  
After going through the sakura exhibit, Isa and I headed to the archaeology exhibit, stopping to take a peek at the conservation exhibit (sadly, mostly in Japanese).

The archaeology exhibit was pretty fun because I recognized most of the objects from the beginning of the art history class.

Isa and the dogu

As I said before, the conservation exhibit looked interesting, but it was all in Japanese, so Isa dragged me away before long.

Then we headed up to the special exhibit—a traveling collection from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston! It was pretty crowded, but I enjoyed looking at all of the screens, statues, and paintings, even if my feet did hurt afterward.

Leaving the Tokyo National Museum, we got lunch and headed to the National Museum of Nature and Science. It. Was. Huge. It consists of two buildings—one with three floors and one with six. And Isa and I traversed them all in under three hours. I am very impressed with us.

If the Tokyo National Museum was amazing, the National Museum of Nature and Science was astounding. I loved how the building played in with the exhibits to keep museum goers interested and engaged.  I also liked how there were translations in English, Korean, and Chinese for most exhibits (even if you had to pay a fee for the ear guide) and I really loved the graphics and design that went into the exhibits (can you tell I’m a museum studies minor yet?).

There was a large exhibit on chickens...loooots of taxidermy in this museum

And speaking of taxidermy...meet Hachiko (yes, the same from Shibuya Station...)

Of course, I prefer interactive museums to art museums, but I was deeply impressed by the sheer score and variety that he National Museum of Nature and Science had to offer.

Some of my favorite exhibits were the plesiosaur, the evolution of Japan room, and the taxidermy room. I feel that taxidermy is treated differently in Japan than it is in America or that maybe I’ve worked at the Nature Center too long and it all seems blasé to me.

Originally discovered by a Japanese man!

These are just a few, but the room was both gigantic and FILLED with various foreign and native animals

This was maybe a fifty foot long wall made of plant specimens encased in glass. It was glorious, and also very hard to take pictures of

However, the human models were amazing—I mistook them for real humans when first saw them! The attention to detail was astounding!

These are models!

This too!

Part of an exhibit on how variations of a species occur in nature

Also there was a super cool theater which was shaped like a sphere and made you feel as if you were constantly moving. I got a little bit of a headache, but it was so cool!

So, Isa and I traversed the three floor building and then the six floor building g as well, determined to get our six hundred yens worth out of it. I am pretty darn sure we did.

After becoming all museumed out and in the zen-like haze of good feelings museums put me in, we headed back to the hostel where I had stored my baggage for the day. After a quick dinner and repacking of my various shopping bags, I was off to Tokyo Station to catch my bus!

Luckily, this time I got a window seat, so I was able to snooze without becoming living drapery to my poor seat mate. I actually got some sleep, so as I waited for the bus (I had just missed the once-an-hour one headed home as I got off the train), I chilled awake.

Then I got home and promptly collapsed. I supposed unpacking will come later in this story.

And thus ends the Tales of Tokyo.