The last time I went to Tokyo must’ve been roughly six years ago. My friend, Jamie, decided to drop by Japan before heading to Hong Kong, his wife’s hometown, and we enjoyed going to various places around the city.
Six years later, I finally decided to take a few days off from work and challenge another visit to the big city of Tokyo again, all by myself. The reason why I use the word “challenge” is for various reasons. This could be one of the most complicated cities in the world to navigate around. There are so many subway/train lines... it almost looks like a Jackson Pollock painting. Then, there are those crowded trains and all those bizarre people that’ll approach you.
I got into the big city at around 10:30 a.m. and I dropped off my stuff at the hotel at around 11 so I could start exploring at around noon.
Getting off at Tokyo station (currently under-construction), I headed off to the Imperial palace, located about a ten minute walk away. There’s a very nice park there and lots of people are on the lawns or benches enjoying lunch or whatever.
This was my second time to go there. The Imperial palace is huge but the inside is off limits to most people. All you can enjoy is the moat around and the bridge/main gate. The gate is enormous... and there are always a few guards standing in little booths. They don’t move. They just stare ahead. I just wonder what’s on their minds. “What’s for dinner?” or “Was this my destiny in life, to just stand here?” might be a few things they might be thinking of.
Walking around the palace takes around thirty minutes. There’s lots of greenery to see and, besides the air pollution of the passing vehicles, it’s a nice walk. You can also see countless numbers of joggers running around. I guess in Tokyo there aren’t too many places where you can jog without the interruption of red lights, so this is the place to go to if you’re a serious jogger.
I dropped by Yasukuni shrine and also the museum. This could be one of the more depressing museums I’ve ever been to in my life. It’s a museum that commemorates Japan’s war efforts in the past. I guess you can try to imagine what Japan’s soldiers of the past had to go through. Let’s hope people aren’t forced to go to war for their countries in the future.
After Y., I decided to go to Tokyo’s National Modern Art museum. I was a bit annoyed that the park next to this place didn’t have sufficient directions but I managed to figure out where it was.
The exhibition that was being held featured Jackson Pollock’s works. I do remember the movie Pollock starring Ed Harris about 10 years ago. It was a good movie, showing what Pollock went through in his short life. He was a serious alcoholic and hypercritical of his work. I learned from the pamphlet that was included with the admission that he was always comparing himself to Picasso.
The museum did a fairly good job of gathering paintings from all over the world for this exhibition and I could get a feel of how his style changed over his lifetime.
Pollocks first stage was slightly normal compared to what he drew towards the end of his life. Some of the works that I saw were in a book about Pollock that I bought half a year ago so I was quite enthused.
In the 1940s he started to experiment with his “dripping” style, dropping paint in all sorts of ways. From the mid to late 40s until his death, he stuck to this style. Splashes and bizarre twisted lines could describe what he painted.
But after achieving fame from his “unique/original” style, he seemed lost. Many of his last works (roughly a year before his death) that he created were all done in black paint. He still used the bizarre twisted lines and splashes but his these paintings seemed to lack something, showing that even great artists may peak with originality.
I felt a sense of sadness viewing his paintings. It seemed like something was tormenting him throughout his life and he was continuously searching for a greater means of expressing himself, never being satisfied with himself.
One painting that was at this exhibition came all the way from Iran. Three meters high and five meters wide, it’s an amazing piece by Pollock. I stared at this thing for minutes on end trying to figure out what the man was thinking. Chances are, I’ll never see this painting in my lifetime again.
After this, I walked back to Tokyo station and headed back to my hotel to rest.
At night, I went to the first of many jazz concerts. Tonight’s performance featured Ooishi Manabu on piano, Yoneki Yasushi on bass and I can’t remember the drummer’s name. It was a good show. Ooishi’s touch is marvelous and Yoneki’s bass’s sound is always enormous. The drummer had enough energy and style to respond well to the two other musicians. The performance was at a live house called Sometime. It’s a very cozy place, having wooden tables and bricks layered on the walls. The price was relatively reasonable considering the quality of the music.
