Reflections on Tokyo
I’ve been back from Tokyo for almost two weeks and am only now finding time to blog about it. During that trip, I finally came to terms with the fact that I’ve been overextending myself for too long. In the two months before the trip, I had been struggling with having downtime in which I wasn’t doing anything—even without watching movies as part of my own historical cultural education through film. But in Tokyo, it really hit home when I was spending half my time there sleeping.
Learning to not work all the time is a difficult thing. My main purpose for going to Tokyo was visiting the Theo Jansen exhibit. The exhibit was totally worth the flight to Tokyo, but after I visited the exhibit on my third day in the city, I was asking myself “now what?”.
The city was great, but I definitely didn’t experience it properly. Having been to Hong Kong for two full summers, Tokyo for me was like a cleaner, more polite version of Hong Kong. Travelling alone, most of my time was spent in quiet contemplation (apt for Tokyo, I suppose).
Akihabara was definitely my favourite tourist destination, and I was surprised by my ability to restrain from unnecessary purchases. Thanks to the internet, I was able to confirm that much of what I wanted was available in Canada and, surprisingly, at a similar price.
I was glad to have stayed in Ueno, as it was home to places like the Tokyo National Gallery and Tokyo Sculpture Museum. What was disapointing? The Tokyo Sculpture Museum is closed from April 1, 2009 until March 2013. 2013! I hadn’t anticipated the closure, and didn’t go to the museum until April 2, only to exchange looks of shock with a group of Japanese women who also wanted to visit the museum.
Photos and video from the Theo Jansen exhibit will follow. Here are my picks of my pics, and the full set of photos can be found on Flickr (Tokyo tag or by set).
Tags: art, theo jansen, tokyo
