|
The above will search Traveljapanblog.com. Concerts - Landscapes - Sports |
I think this is the last picture (“God’s Hand” by Carl Milles) from inside the Hakone Open-Air Museum that I’ll show you for now. I have a couple other photos from around Hakone that I’ll post in the next few days before we physically return to Japan. Then, at last, you’ll get to see some fresh pictures!
Inside the Hakone Open-Air Museum is the “Symphonic Sculpture” by Gabriel Loire which is a lookout tower made out of stained glass with a spiral staircase in the middle. This is the view from the inside.
Tokyo Observer by Leighton Willgerodt is a 20-year old book with timeless information about Japan. The writing style is very conversational and you may end up reading the whole thing in one sitting. The “chapters” are reprints from newspaper articles Willgerodt wrote in the late 1980s about Japanese culture, customs, and language. He had lived in Japan for more than a decade at the time.
The last third or fourth of the book is about other parts of Asia. I didn’t find it as interesting, probably because I haven’t lived in those areas. The first hundred pages or so are fantastic though. I highly recommend this to someone going to spend an extended period of time in Japan. Tokyo Observer is a fun, quick read that will keep you entertained as it prevents you from making some common gaijin mistakes. You’ll pick up more than a few Japanese words along the way too.
If your library doesn’t have it you can pick it up through the above link for about a dollar.
A few weeks back I went to the website of my favorite Japanese band, Outrage. I wanted to see if they have been up to anything recently or if they were even possibly touring Japan after I get there (next week!). They aren’t touring, BUT they are playing a single gig that I was previously unaware of, Loud Park, a festival that is just a short train ride away from my future apartment.
The festival lineup features only one other band that I’ve been longing to see that I haven’t witnessed live previously, Arch Enemy from Sweden. There are some other good bands playing that I have seen several times before like Judas Priest, Megadeth, and Slayer. The rest of the time I’ll figure out some way to rest and enjoy the madness of way too many people crammed into the place.
Getting a ticket turned out to be much easier than expected given that I wasn’t in Japan when they went on sale. A complete stranger on Facebook purchased one for me. Thank you Ayaka!
Stay tuned for a couple of months to get my report. While the lineup isn’t as impressive as Metaltown 2008, maybe they will add another great band or two before the big weekend.
Inside the Hakone Open-Air Museum is a Picasso Museum. I once read somewhere that Japanese museums like to collect works of famous artists even if the pieces aren’t the artist’s best work or famous in their own right. That was the impression I received at this Picasso Museum. While everything was done by Picasso, much of it seemed like “junk.”
We saw some really nice Picasso works in Denmark and Paris last summer. Each one seemed better than the best in this dedicated Picasso Museum.
