Deep culture and the universe

Hey there :)

I hope you had a great week! Mine was busy as usual, and there so much to tell about. I won't be able to fit the whole week in one post, but I will just start at the beginning ;)

Deep cultural encounters

So last Sunday, we had a field trip with our Deep Culture Difference class (my favourite! ;P if you are ever going to Keio, make sure to take this one!). It led us to Otsuki and Zoshigaya, narrow streets and areas which even Tokyo locals don't really know about. We were 20 people and maybe seven of us were Japanese, so we split up in groups and had one Japanese "interpreter" explaining the things we saw on our way. We started at a shotengai, a traditional Japanese shopping street, where we found a traditional sweets shop. The sweets called had different delicious fillings...

"Sun mall" - The way it is written in Hiragana, characters used for Japanese words (and not for foreign words), shows that it is a proper Japanese word now

Mmmhhh

 Then we also visited a shrine, practiced worshipping and bought a fortune paper (I got a good one - again! :))

Bad fortune tree: The tradition is that if you get a bad fortune, you must place them here in order to prevent it from coming true

Our professor, Joseph Shaules, seemed to know every shop owner in this lovely area, and recommended good places for coffee. The shops were passed through generations, and where geta - traditional Japanese shoes - were once produced, there were hair salons now. It is also lovely how the area has churches and even a mosque as well - open to every culture.

Retro hair salon from the 60s - marked by the turning pillar

The smallest mosque I have ever seen!

 He even invited us to his home which is furnished and designed in a mix of Japanese and Western style called wayosecchu. He even had a piano on which he and some fellow students played for us - even in a trio! :) For privacy reasons, I won't post photos of his home, but of the amazing view from his roof instead:

Read an interesting interview with our professor here. 

Our next attraction was one of the last Japanese trams (or streetcars) - the Toden Arakawa Line. This really felt like arriving in a new city, while our large group occupied almost all the space in the small car.

The last of its kind 

The Toden car took us to Zoshigaya, where the Kishimojindo temple and the cemetery waited for us.

This indicates a temple where you can pray for childbirth and easy delivery

Here, you can buy dagashi - cheap (and good!) Japanese sweets 

 

A glimpse inside the temple

 In the cemetery, we had the "assignment" to look for graves of famous people, like the writer Natsume Soseki, Japan's first female doctor Ogino Ginko and Lafcadio Hearn, who brought us Kwaidan, the well-known book of Japanese ghost stories.

Natsume Soseki's grave, who is considered the greatest modern Japanese writer

Ogino Ginko came a long way fighting for her right to become a physician as a woman back in the 19th century - a possible inspiration for today's feminists

All this tour was made unforgettable by so many amazing people I got to know on the way. Thank you so much! :)

Coloured lights in the night sky

Since it was still the early afternoon when we finished, I decided to go to Ueno park and see the Suki Festival, which took place over the weekend. I found live performers, music, lots of food and drinks, as well as a cute bonsai exhibition there :) The park is really big and I certainly did not see everything, but still spent many hours walking around and sitting between the trees while enjoying coffee and the cool evening air.

Of course, there are a lot of temples and shrines here as well

 

I still wonder what the sculptures actually mean

A little bonsai exhibit

Acrobat perfomances

As soon as it got dark, however, the real magic began...

Even the temples were illuminated

There were a lot of signs pointing to these coloured balloons - but they were still hard to find

Found them!

View from the hill

Here's a little impression of the colourful balloon show:

Found water!

The Universe and Art

Another day, another field trip! On Monday, the Mori Art Museum was on my schedule, where we went with the course "Science and Technology in Japanese Culture". The exhibition was called "The Universe and Art" - a title which made me wonder how these two can even fit together. But it did surprisingly well! It all started with the history of space research (featuring traditional paintings, Japanese folklore and a replica of Galilei's telescope) and ended with aliens, space travel and amazing digital installations. Irritating noise rooms  and videos of insects was also something you could find there. I won't show too many photos in order to avoid spoiling the fun for those who still want to go there. But here is a glimpse into this unique exhibition.

This was supposed to represent the black hole / M-spheres

The original copy of Newton's book!

"The Crawler" - model of a rocket transport vehicle

This digital installation was, both visually and auditorily, the highlight of the museum (it was just a dark room where you could sit in, and I watched the 5-minute show maybe 5 times :P)

Don't watch the following video if you're still planning to visit the Mori Art Museum - it shows the work by the teamLab artist group (which is better than the quality makes you believe):

Because the museum is located on the 53rd floor of the Mori tower in Roppongi Hills, we had a fantastic view over Tokyo - you can even see Tokyo Skytree above all the other buildings:

Of course, this is not all there was to the week. In fact, it got even more exciting: We had a very special guest in our Arts Workshop, and watched a very Japanese sports event. Read more about it soon and have a good start of the week :)