Thursday, October 25, 2007

A scramble for something to see

How rude! I head off for my first destination of the day - the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art - only to find that it is shut! My guess is that it is shut for rehanging until the weekend, but there are no signs to say this, only one saying that the Crafts Gallery down the road is open. So off there I went. The Crafts Gallery is housed in a building that looks like a minor English public school, and is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary. The anniversary show is quite strange, showing one or two items from many of the shows it has hosted through the years, meaning that a show such as "Glassware from the 1960's to the present day" just shows 1 vase from 1973!

Next, I took the subway to the Edo Tokyo museum, housed in a giant concrete frog-like building (really!). This told the story of how the original trading town of Edo grew and eventually turned into Japan's capital and was renamed Tokyo. It showed ho the technological Japan we think of today is a relatively modern invention, and as little as 150 years ago it was very isolationist.

To complete a hat-trick of museums/galleries I went from here to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. This was a strange space, housing lots of separate galleries, all with their own temporary display in, but no way of really finding out what each of them was showing (well, I guess there was a clue if you could read Japanese!). I went round the free one (naturally) which was a collection of photographs, and another on which promised modern art but was more amateur art.

Finally, I made my way over to the "Shibuya Scramble" crossing - a busy point where 7 roads meet in the middle of a shopping and transportation area. Here, there are lots of electronic adverts and screens above the crossing. I had a look round the shops before grabbing some dinner in a nearby Chinese restaurant.

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