The
Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya was pretty awesome! I went with Raven and Chisako last Saturday. They had some cool exhibits including a bunch of tea ceremony, noh theatre, and ancient court game things. They also have old Genji Monogatari (
Tale of Genji) manuscripts including a reproduction of surviving parts of the oldest know illustrated copy (check it out, there's
some more info on wikipedia). While the originals are, of course, too old and easily damaged to actually show it was still cool to see the reproduction.
We also got to see the special viewing of 'Sen no Rikyu: Tea Scoop of Tears'. He is considered the greatest master of the tea ceremony and this tea scoop is the one he carved himself and used in his last tea ceremony before he had to commit ritual suicide.
What we really went for was the Hina Doll exhibit! It was awesome~~~ Dozens of old dolls from the Edo period and tons of doll accessories. So pretty! I wish they allowed pictures. But, in lieu of that I shall link you to the
Japanese exhibit site. Just scroll down the page til you get to the pictures and click on them.
After the museum we had coffee and bussed/trecked to Sakae to go shopping. I got three new books at Maruzen bookstore!
Dewey,
Inkheart, and
The Tale of Desperaux. I am excited for all of them. it is so much nicer to buy books when you can check out their covers and fondle them a little first.
For dinner we went to a little
kaiten zushi in the subway mall but it kind sucked, so we left after one piece each and found a really nice soba noodle place in Nagoya station.