Japan Day four

Day 4 (August 14, 2010)

Having only a half day left to hang out with Dave in Tokyo, we got going fairly early and were out of our hotel by 9:30 (early!). After another little run-in with subway confusion, we eventually found Dave at the subway stop at our first activity for the day, a visit to the Mori Modern Art Museum. The exhibit included three installations by three artists around the theme of nature and how Japanese interact with their natural surroundings. The exhibit had English audio guides available so we enjoyed listening to the descriptions of each exhibit (you know modern art, it often requires a little explanation). I was very impressed with this exhibit, though. Shannon and Dave took some pictures (which I don’t think we were supposed to be doing, no one told anyone to stop taking them) so you’ll have to take a look, the most jarring one being the bleeding mountain. Another hit was the 4 walled clear plastic piece, filled with hundreds of pounds of feathers with a fan that turns on every minute or so to simulate snow. Very neat! The museum was located on the 50^th or so floor of a skyscraper, so admission came with free access to the observation areas, so we got a daytime look at the Tokyo skyline. It’s very beautiful!

After the art museum we rushed over to our second museum of the day, the beer museum! This was perhaps the smallest museum I’ve ever seen, and the exhibit took us all of 15 minutes to walk through. Its for the Yebisu brand of beer, one of the first in Japan and its now owned by the Sapporo company. We sampled a beer afterwards (NOT free *sadface*). Nearby was a second beer restaurant so we sampled a couple more offerings and enjoyed some nice german style sausage (also popular in Korea).

After our midday drinks and snacks, we had to say goodbye to Dave in order to catch our train out to Kyoto. We made it over to Tokyo station with little problem and proceeded to board one of the fastest trains in the world, the Shinkasken, AKA the bullet train. It took us from Tokyo to Kyoto in a little over 2 hours, very impressive.

At Kyoto station we found Miho, a woman that we’ve hosted back in the states on a few different occasions. She is super nice and friendly and has given us a splendid room in her lovely house to stay in for a few days. She is also taking us around and coming up with a lot of different things for us to do (which is great, we came with literally a blank agenda). This week is a special holiday in traditional Japanese culture- the O-bon Festival. Families remember their ancestors and it is said that in these few days their spirits can come back into this world. One of the neat things they do on the last day to say goodbye is to create a sort of light house effect for the spirits, by making many large controlled fires on the side of a mountain in the shape of a symbol. We’re really looking forward to seeing that tomorrow.

Anyways, Miho made us dinner and it was delicious – raw fish, rice, meat dumplings and regular dumplings (sort of like fried mandoo from Korea). We chatted and watched “National Treasure” which happened to be on TV. We’re really glad to be here!’

That being said we have a long day tomorrow so its off to bed again! Day 4? ANOTHER SUCCESS!