Tokyo wrap up and on to Kyoto

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Today was our last day in Tokyo

😞 / 😊 ?

Mom was happy that we were no longer going to be staying in the hotel-of-tiny-bathrooms, but we were sad that we were leaving the big city. Although, as soon as we arrived in Kyoto mom said, "This feels closer to home." I think she was relieved to be back in Kyoto.

Before we left Tokyo, however, we headed over to Ueno Park--about 5 blocks away from our hotel--and took a stroll through the park to the Tokyo National Musuem. The Tokyo National Museum houses some of Japan's most valuable and precious historical objects and artistic masterpieces. The museum consists of four separate buildings, however, we just went into the main building; and there was plenty to look at. The exhibitions begin on the second floor of the main building with Japan's pre-history (also classified as the Jomon Period), and then from there the exhibitions continue through Japan's history (mostly) chronologically.

I'm unsure what my parents' favorite exhibition was, but my personal favorites were the Jomon pottery, the Zen and Kano ink paintings, the various scrolls, and lacquerware objects.

Jomon pottery is said to be the oldest known pottery in the world, if you want to know more about it, click HERE for the wiki link. It was very cool to see one of these pots up close and in-person. Looking at pictures in an art history text book doesn't quite explain how impressive they really are.

Zen ink painting came to Japan in the Muromachi period (approx. 1336-1573) via China; influenced by Chinese landscape painting. From Zen ink painting, branched Kano ink painting, a sort of marriage of the stark aesthetics of Zen and the ornate wall paintings of the nobility. To read more about Japanese ink painting, click HERE.

I won't bore you with any more explanations, but this is a good website to look at examples of Japanese scrolls HERE, and lacquerware HERE.

So, after seeing all there was to see in the museum--and in keeping with my dad's love for knick-knacks (I like them too)--we went and took a look around the gift shop. The museum gift shop was doing a raffle, and we ended up winning a small makie-e laquerware box and a calendar! Woo-hoo! I was pleased to find that the gift shop also had magatama for sale (magatama are ancient, pre-history, symbols used in Japan to represent the human spirit--usually created using semi-precious stones; they are also a part of the Emperor's regalia).

We were all rather hungry after our museum run, so we headed back towards our hotel and ate at a conveyer-belt sushi (kaitenzushi) place along the way. The fish was delicious, as usual...but there was something very strange rotating around among the fish.

...

At first I thought it was a joke when I read the sign, but there was raw horse meat on rice just spinning around and around and around on the belt. I can honestly say I have never seen horse meat before, let alone raw and on top of sushi rice. I didn't try any. I feel like it may have ruined my appetite (and that would be a shame with so much awesome fish 1 foot away from my face).

Anyway, after sushi we gathered our things, said goodbye to the hotel-of-tiny-bathrooms, and headed to the station. Goodbye Tokyo, Hello Kyoto! The shinkansen ride was fun, once again, and the speed at which we were going was incredible. I still can't believe we traveled 230 miles in 2 hours and 20 minutes. I wish we could afford to have a train like that in the US. There's no such thing as security checks in Japan, either, so traveling on the shinkansen is very very fast.

Once we got to Kyoto, we headed straight over to the hotel. We're staying at the same hotel we stayed in the last time we were in Kyoto because we liked it so much: Village Kyoto.

Dinner was boxed 7-11 plum wine, some beer, left over snacks we had, pork buns, and buttered red bean bread from the convenience store. The plum wine was surprisingly delicious. I love you 7-11. Convenience stores in Japan truely are convenient.

おやすみなさい、みなーさん！(Good night everybody!)

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Photos

Floral Arrangements
Off the hook!

1,000 year old pottery
oldest known pottery, amazingly intricate

Hard Rock
This either describes Tokyo or Greg?

Comments

[Kristen Gadd]

AMAZING
I love reading these blogs! It makes me feel like im right there with you guys! I can't wait to hear about in person!

[skibum]

blogs
I'm glad you like them!! Does this response go to your email? Curious to know how you know I answered the message. This is a pretty cool site. A bit of a learning curve at first but I'm getting the hang of it. It was so hard to leave, we had a great time!