Tokyo Whirlwind, Bullet Train Blast Off

My free-as-a-bird leisure time in Tokyo had come to a close. Time to pack up the miniskirts and burnout tanks and dress a bit more conservatively, so as to exude a bit more of a scholarly image. As I expected, the train crowd was mostly business men and women heading to another long day at work. In a certain sense I was doing the same thing, but fortunately my line of work is interesting and exciting (to me at least!). I took the morning train straight up the Ginza subway line to Ueno Station, eager to meet my former professor and current colleague/great friend, Cynthea Bogel. A nice stroll through Ueno park, past several small shrines and temples, lost-looking foreign couples, and a mother escorting her son to school, and I arrived at the front gate of Tokyo National Museum, an imposing complex of buildings that house incredible treasures.

I was early for our meeting (a preference of mine), so I snapped random pictures and listened to the Grateful Dead. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a smiling face excitedly waving in my direction, and I dropped everything to rush across the street and greet Cynthea. We met with another art historian who recently relocated to Jochi Daigaku. Together we visited the special exhibition on Ise Shrine, which featured a lot of “Shinto” art and highlighted the crossover between Buddhist and local traditions. Actually, first we chatted about the field and about potential Japan advisors for me – very exciting! In the crazy world of academia, it is so important to know people and always be meeting new people, so on this morning I felt incredibly blessed. The exhibition was great, and Cynthea and I tried to see as much of the honkan (main building) in after before heading back south to another show.

We left the museum and walked through a delightful Kyoto-esque neighborhood to pick up her luggage from a ryokan (inn) and stopped there for barley tea and senbe (rice crackers). The second exhibition on Taoist Art was located in the old Mitsui bank building, and much of the original installation had been preserved (and moved). It was spectacular. The same building houses the Mandarin Hotel, which we took a quick tour of, since Cynthea’s good friend Reiko designed all of the textiles for it. This hotel was the nicest I’ve seen (the view from the 38th floor was not bad, either!). The art exhibition was similar to the Ise Shrine one, in the sense that it showed a blending of religious and cultural traditions. I quite enjoyed it (although my load was getting increasingly heavy the more catalogues I bought!). From there we sped to Reiko’s textile house, Nuno, which is apparently the most well-known and respected in Japan (http://www.nuno.com/home.html). Cynthea’s love of textiles and ceramics has obviously started rubbing off on me - I found myself amazed by the exquisite detail of Reiko’s designs. And wanting to buy everything, which was completely irrational and impossible!

This rushed day was not yet over, for we had one more stop before grabbing my bags and heading to Kyoto. Another friend of hers runs a small gallery space called "Nichi nichi" that was currently showing ceramics (Elmar, the owner, is also a homeopathic doctor and runs the practice form upstairs). Along with textiles, I had theretofore paid little attention to ceramics, but to hold these hand-crafted gems in one’s hand and feel the lightness, the technique, and the perfect imperfections was something else. Elmar’s lacquer ware also enchanted me, and I oh-so-wanted to take a bowl home that I would forever after eat all my meals in. I simply could not justify the $400 price tag, however. We drank tea from a beautiful teapot and sipped from probably the nicest tea cup I have ever used. This blissful moment too, like all others, was but ephemeral, and we knew it was time to get back on the road. And we were lucky we did, for upon arriving at Tokyo station we learned that there was only one more train to Kyoto that evening! Quick bento purchase and we hopped aboard, luckily finding two contiguous seats amidst the sea of businessmen returning home. Bullet train blast off! Before dozing off (thanks to my Asahi beer, no doubt) I penned (ok, I typed) a few notes:

      ***I am writing from the shinkansen (bullet train), zipping by 100mph south and west toward Kyoto. I feel as if we are about to break the sound barrier…street lights and small stations zip as quickly as they appear. This speeding, rushing feeling has characterized much of my day, in fact.

Our speed-of-light-gurai (about) train came to a fleeting stop before midnight at Kyoto station. As soon as I stepped off the train, everything felt different. The Kansai air felt a bit heavier, the people dressed differently, and the Tokyo-madness was now just a mere memory. Time definitely moves slower here. I like that. My new temporary home is the Palace Side hotel, which sits adjacent to…the former Imperial Palace. I fell into a dreamless sleep (surprising for me!) almost as soon as I hit the pillow.