Continuing from yesterday’s blog entry, the “Special Exhibition: Vision and Reminiscence of Edo – Masterpieces from the Takahashi Seiichiro Collection of Ukiyo-e Prints” was a lot of fun to stumble upon.

This next ukiyoe reminded me of another recent scene.

I didn’t take a photograph of Enoshima from the same angle drawn by Hiroshige in “The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō,” but I did take one, below, on the bridge out to Enoshima (江ノ島).

And I took one looking back, to where Hiroshige did his drawing 180 years before, from the shrine at the top of the stairs on Enoshima. Much has changed on the landscape with 180 years of development, but you can still feel the ukiyoe if you visit the area on something other than a weekend or holiday.

Finally, there was another ukiyoe (浮世絵), below, that was very fresh in my mind. We crossed Nihonbashi (日本橋) in order to get to the Mitsui Memorial Museum just a half hour before.

It, too, has changed (and yet not changed) in the subsequent centuries–especially with the freeway being built right over the top.

But some things are still there, even if in a slightly different format…

How many other department stores have been in business for more than 450 years?

Posted on November 10th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: buildings, enoshima, museums, Tokyo. Comments: None

Our 8th usage of the Grutt Pass was going to be at the Bridgestone Museum of Art near Nihonbashi. For the second time we encountered a museum that was closed due to a rotation in exhibits. Ugh.

We flipped through our pass booklet to find the closest museum, and it turned out to be the Mitsui Memorial Museum. We had no idea what to expect as we hadn’t researched this fall-back museum at all. We got really lucky.

Nothing was available in English so we didn’t know what we would be seeing. In the second room of the exhibit I realized that we had stumbled upon some of the most famous works to ever be created in Japan. Thank you Bridgestone Museum for being closed! Otherwise we would have never seen these originals.

Photography was not allowed so the pics below were not taken by me.

First up was Hokusai’s “Great Wave off Kanagawa” (Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 神奈川沖浪裏). The original is not as pretty as the prints you normally see which have been altered, but the feeling while seeing the real thing is far better than the cleaned-up prints. The above is a photo of the original. Click on the above to see the version you are probably more familiar with.

The above was drawn from basically the same spot that I took this next picture on Enoshima.

Another ukiyoe that brought back a recent memory was this next one by Hiroshige (歌川広重) from his series “The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō.”

We were near that spot a few weeks back in Hakone at the Old Tokaido Hakone Checkpoint. Here is a photo I took then from the same general location. Unfortunately, the clouds obscured Mt. Fuji for my picture, unlike Hiroshige’s.

By the way, the museum entrance fee would have been 1,200 yen. We got in free with the Grutt Pass.

Posted on November 9th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: enoshima, grutt pass, hakone, museums, Tokyo. Comments: 3