First snow of 2011

It snowed for a couple of hours tonight, but I don't think it's deep enough to be very dangerous for driving. That's what I like-just enough to make the trees beautiful.
This picture is right outside our apartment. I saw the neighbor trimming these trees in the summer and fall to keep them shaped; I think they look even more interesting covered in white.

Happy New Year!

Some of you outside of Japan may be thinking "so, Rob.... what's this weird image with rabbits on the moon that I received as a New Years card?" I'm glad you asked!
Sending New Years cards is a part of Japanese culture; if you want more details, click here. The short version is that it's common for the card to have an image of the animal from the current year's Chinese zodiac sign, and 2011 is a rabbit year. One other culture connection is that in East Asia the perceived image of the surface of the moon is not a human face, it's a rabbit.  Also, Nozomi and I both liked the retro, quirky design of the image (I'm retro and we're both quirky...)
So, once more: Happy 2011 (that's "twenty eleven"!)

Tokyo museums part two

The second museum we visited on our trip last week was The National Art Center, Tokyo. It has no permanent collection, but was designed as an enormous exhibition space (four floors). The building has a very striking appearance that's a bit hard to fully capture in photos; the first two pictures are the interior and exterior of the building.
We saw this year's installment of the annual "Domani: Art of Tomorrow" show that features works by artists who have returned after studying art abroad on grants. As an expat living in Japan, the concept of re-exploring and re-evaluating your own culture after living abroad is fascinating to me. And, of course, the cultural assimilation I'm experiencing here is ongoing. After being here for nearly four years, I've started to understand the Japanese cultural concept of "cuteness" ("kawaii") rather well, even though I still find some aspects of it rather strange. One of the artists that was featured, Ryoko Suzuki, uses her photography to satirize this cultural concept. She superimposes her own face on photos of dolls and other images that would be considered very cute by this standard, but she exaggerates the physical characteristics and styles of the images even more than is done usually to accentuate their absurdity and comment on gender roles. As is common, no photos were allowed inside, but I'm including two small images of the photographer's works from the show that I borrowed from her website.
We're hoping to return to this venue again for one of the next shows which will focus on 20th century surrealism and include works by Dali and Duchamp.
The final picture is one more photo that I took of ume blossoms.

Tokyo museums part one

The "lonely statue" from the last post is actually in the garden outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. "Teien" means garden, usually formal or decorative style, for example, Japanese garden or rose garden. This garden had both of those, and art incorporated into different sections. Ume (plum) trees were just starting to blossom; a little earlier than usual this year.
The museum building is the former residence of Prince Asaka of the Japanese imperial family. It was built in 1933 shortly after he and other family members had an extended stay in France during the height of the art deco movement. French artists contributed to the design of the house, and it is now known as "The Residence of Art Deco" in Japan. The actual collection of art inside the museum is fairly small, but the building itself is a work of art. Photographs were only allowed in certain areas inside, so I have only included two. In one, Nozomi is standing in the entryway in front of elaborate glass doors. In the other, the large vase/lamp/whatever-it-is looks like the very definition of art deco to me.
Part two next time...

We found a lonely statue that needed friends...

International Restaurant Tour in Tokyo

Nozomi & I took a short trip to Tokyo mostly to go to museums and eat food we can''t find in Utsunomiya. I'll post pictures of the museum parts later, but for now, here's the food:
The first night, we had dinner with Nozomi's sister (who lives not far from this part of Tokyo) at a Peruvian restaurant. I was checking on a website that lists international restaurants in Tokyo before we left, and when I saw that there is one restaurant there with cuisine from Peru, I thought that would be a fun adventure (especially when the review said it was delicious and not too expensive). The review was absolutely right-we had a table full of new, wonderful tastes! It turns out that Peru's embassy is not far from the restaurant, and as we were eating dinner, it looked like some of the other diners might have a connection there. My brain was doing strange language mixing for much of the time we were there; I started to think in Spanish part of the time, but sometimes some Japanese words got inserted in my mind...confusing but fun. I asked the waiter, "excuse me (in Japanese); can you take a picture of us? (in Spanish)" and thanked him and said the food was delicious in Japanese and Spanish as we left.
For lunch today, we ate at a bakery restaurant that's part of a chain that has a location here in Utsunomiya. It has sort of a general European fusion style-nothing surprising, but both of our dishes were great, and the bread was VERY VERY good! Sorry--we didn't take any pictures there.
Dinner today was at a Jewish deli ("David's Deli"-successful enough that they had their own personalized dishes). We had a hummus and baba ganoush plate with pita bread, falafel sandwich, tabouli salad, and chicken. It was fantastic!
And, our snack we ate just now was.....  donuts from Mister Donut-YUM! That's a little international because the chain started in America, became very successful, opened branches in Japan, became even more successful here than it was in the States, and eventually closed all the stores in America, but that's another story...

New Years Fun

On December 30^th, Nozomi & I went to her parents' house to help with preparations for the traditional New Years Day meal. I can't say that I really helped THAT much, but it was interesting to try to make one of the special dishes. Konbu-maki (fish wrapped in seaweed and tied with gourd fiber strings). On the way home, there was a little snow falling. It was just enough to make a beautiful dusting of white on the ground before it melted.

Today (January 1^st) we returned for lunch. We ate many kinds of traditional foods arranged in stacking lacquerware boxes (osechi). Before eating we took family pictures and after lunch Nozomi, her mother and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. (I'm using the word “neighborhood” a little loosely: her parents' house is in a rural area, and there are only two or three houses within a five-minute walk.) We were looking for kiji (pheasant), which is common in this area, but didn't see any. We did see a large heron (sagi) fairly close, and a few cranes (tsuru) on the other side of the rice fields.

I'm thankful for another calm, relaxing vacation day!