Category Archives: parks

The Hakone Open-Air Museum

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reclining visitor

The Hakone Open Air Museum is a large park filled with an excellent collection of sculpture, as well as several indoor galleries. It’s my favorite museum in Japan because of its large collection of Henry Moore sculptures. And because there aren’t too many things in life better than appreciating art outdoors.

The museum is actually a collection of smaller museums and galleries, as well as the various outdoor areas dotted with installations.

CIMG5037.JPGgaping

  • The Art Hall has a really nice collection of new acquisitions in a pleasing, open, naturally lit space.
  • There’s a gallery dedicated to Henry Moore to give you some background on his philosophy and career.
  • The Picture Gallery had a display of Japanese artists influenced by Rodin, with some nice pieces by Giacommetti and other early 20th Century Italian sculptors.
  • For families kids can crawl around in or explore many different sculptures. There’s the indoor castle of nets, an outdoor “playground”, a glass mosaic tower called the Symphonic Sculpture, and a hive-like burrow of see-through plastic hexagons.
  • The biggest gallery is the Picasso collection, with mostly a sizeable collection of his ceramics, which he did mostly at the end of his life. It’s a nice change of pace from the over-exposure of his paintings from his Blue and Cubist Periods. The genius of the man is so broad, he deserves to be admired through all of his chosen media. I noticed he had recurring themes of fish, satyrs and his wife, perhaps his three main concerns as an aging man: food, wine and women?
  • Also, be sure to get your feet wet in the warm outdoor footbath.

the net castlefootbath

A Brief Rant on the Terrible Coffee of Museum Cafés
The bookstore café has interesting mid-century décor, but the coffee is the usual mediocre overpriced cup of weak mud. I wonder when museums will realize that an afternoon of great art is sullied by bad coffee.

I don’t mind the over-priced part because the cafés are usually quite stylish or artistic. Just make the coffee good. It doesn’t have to be great, just make it decent. I’ll even take anonymous and un-noteworthy.

Don’t make me look down and notice an inferior beverage. Also, for crying out loud, for $4-8, get it out of the cheap paper cup, and put it into a mug or glass cup. And hey, why not throw in a freaking chocolate square or a candied almond!?

A Post-Rant Conclusion
Bad coffee aside, I love the Hakone Open-Air Museum. It’s the best bang for your buck in terms of an art experience, with varied galleries, lots of interactive opportunities, all in a dramatic outdoor space.

Happoen

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gold carp

About a week before Christmas, T and I had one of our rare days off together. So we made the most of it and explored some more of Shirokane, a neighborhood near our apartment.  I recently wrote about its street of gingko trees.

La Boheme
First we went to our favorite restaurant there, La Boheme, for lunch. It’s really one of the few places we can afford in that over-priced neighborhood. Yet the decor is quite lush and luxurious. Although, there is somewhat of a gothic haunted mansion vibe about the place that’s a bit cheesy.

La Boheme

Sometimes, there’s an accordionist, and once there were a pair of violinists. It’s actually a chain, but the service is always superb, and the food is very good. I recommend the gorgonzola and honey pizza. The arabica pasta is also tasty.

Happoen
Then we decided to check out Happoen, which is a private garden that is rented out for weddings. It’s a traditional Edo style garden that used to belong to a local lord. There are a couple chapels, a restaurant, and cafe, and the huge gorgeously maintained garden. Because it’s not a public park, there were few people there. The sign at the entrance says only customers and guests are allowed, but we went in anyway. No one seemed to mind. I suspect many locals go there to chill out.

danglingwater and leaves

In Happoen there is a path lined with bonsai that are hundreds of years old, and a pond that reflected the surrounding trees in a way that created the surreal colors of an impressionistic painting. I spent a long time photographing the carp. T teased me about this because I have this fascination with them. I’m mesmerized by the way they slither placidly under the surface of the water.

persimmon bonsaimottled

Book Off!
It’d been a long time since we wandered around Shirokane. Even though it’s near our home, it’s not really our kind of place. Lots of rich matrons walking their spoiled ornamental dogs, sipping $10 coffees in pretentious cafes.

It kept us from visiting this gem of a garden. And we also never noticed that there was a bookstore with a huge inventory of used English-language books. The bookstore is called Book Off, an ubiquitous chain of bookstores specializing in used books, usually all in Japanese, and mostly manga. But apparently, they also buy used English books (and several other languages too) and they all get sent to this one branch, which is bizarre because Shirokane is definitely not known as a place where foreigners live.

Most of the books are 300 to 500 yen. So it’s cheaper than any other used English bookstore in Tokyo. Plus, it has a nice cafe, so it was the perfect way to end our date: kicking back with our stack of books, sipping coffee, watching the languid locals be walked around by their Hiltonian pooches.

On the Way to Rikugien Gardens

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stone bridge

On my final Autumn Leaves outing for the season, I went to the Rikugien Gardens, which is in north Tokyo (between Komagome and Sugamo stations on the northern end of the Yamanote Line). It’s probably the final outing because at the park, the leaves were gently drifting down en masse.

The park is so well designed that I decided then and there that it was my favorite Tokyo park. The central feature is a large pond with several islands in it. And though it’s compact and relatively small, the views are constantly varied as you walk around. Also, it’s one of the few gardens in the city that doesn’t have skyscrapers sullying the view.

The textures and colors of the trees are layered in pleasing ways. The gardens were designed to depict famous poems and I could easily feel the poetic sensibilities throughout the grounds. Oh don’t hesitate to visit while it still has leaves.

A Little Detour
I’d never stopped off at Sugamo and Komagome stations so I decided to walk around. These are some of the interesting things I saw on the way to Rikugien .

A street of markets with solar panels.
solar panels

The Sugamo Jizo Street Market, apparently where all the cool seniors go shopping, for such things as terribly unstylish shoes, granny snacks and dried fish shavings in bulk.
shaved fishcrackers

On one end of the street was an empty temple billowing in incense smoke.
incense

Further down the street there was a crowd of people patiently waiting in line at another temple…
waiting

…to take turns pouring water on, cleaning, and wiping a black statue of the goddess of compassion.
wiping

Closer to the park there was a neighborhood of large estates, houses that are as big as any in California. And out of nowhere an enormous building with impressive columns emerged, which I gathered was the headquarters of a syncretic religion. It sure as heck wasn’t Buddhist.
columns

And finally Rikugien Gardens. My favorite spot was the highest point at the center where the yellow leaves of an ancient tree steadily rained down. All manner of emotional buttons were pushed. It was so damn poetic and beautiful I almost cried. Another year gently dropping its leaves.

panorama

Gingkos, Acorns, Berries and Pampas Grass

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nuts and berries

On my last days off, I went looking for signs of Autumn, my favorite season. It was a delicious pair of days. The sun kept rapping on the glass urging me to get out of the apartment and away from the computer. It’s late November, but the leaves haven’t quite changed yet in all its glory. But my persimmon had dropped half its orange leaves. And from my balcony I could see some Fall colors over at the nature reserve.

So I headed out to the The Institute for Nature Study, which is a large tract of undisturbed forest in Meguro. About 500 years ago, it belonged to the original Lord Shirokane whose name is now used for the nearby neighborhood. Unlike the well-kept, tidy parks around Tokyo, the Center is truly a wild place. Only 300 people are allowed in at any time. On a Thursday afternoon, there were only retirees and me. And lots and lots of crows.

pondpampas grass

At the reserve, there are several ponds and marshes. I saw some egrets feeding in one. It’s sufficiently big enough that I could get away from the raucous crows, and even escape the city noise. It was great therapy. There are many places to sit and sketch, write or space out.

On the way there, I biked on the posh Platinum St. It’s lined with towering gingko trees. While the leaves haven’t turned yellow yet, many of the trees are dropping the gingko nuts. In fact, my bike made a lot of crunching sounds while I was being pelted by nuts literally showering down on me. The light bruising wasn’t so bad, but the worst thing is the smell. The nuts reek like rancid butter. Later in the park, I got shat on by a crow. But it was such an unrelentingly beautiful day, I gave in to whatever nature wanted to throw at me.

Meditating Wind no. 37

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Meditating Wind no. 37

I haven’t posted pictures lately in the Meditating Wind series. So I dug out a pair from the archives of my mac and put them in my flickr account. These were taken in Ueno Park just outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ueno is full of museums and so it’s one of my favorite neighborhoods. But you don’t even need to enter a museum to be among art. There’s public art everywhere. Even the police substation in the center of the park is an interesting architectural curiosity, with Darth Vaderish Bauhaus elements. And don’t miss the excellent Rodin collection that’s just outside the entrance of the National Museum of Western Art.

These two pictures seem to represent different kinds of meditative experiences. They both play with perspective and illusion. But in the one above, the self is prominent and separate from experience. In the one below, the self is an insignificant speck completely absorbed in experience, not self-conscious at all, but still present.

During meditation, I tend to go back and forth between these two states, eventually settling into one. I can’t say one is better than the other. In the detached, self-conscious state, I get more insight. In the absorbed, self-less state, I feel closer to pure experience and enlightenment. Or maybe I just feel more sleepy. I like how the silver ball melts into the sky, and the emptiness of the hole seems to be the most solid element in the composition.

Meditating Wind no. 38