I woke up very excited as I was going to see Norie today and hadn’t seen her since 2001. I woke up early, did a Bat Mitzvah lesson on Zoom and then went downstairs to see what the breakfast buffet was like – this time I booked it ahead of time. I found lots to eat. There was also “western style” breakfast which I avoided. This is what I chose to eat: Delicious!
Right at 10:03, I met Norie at the station – We were so happy to see each other! This incredible feeling of lightness I felt once we reunited and hugged, carried me like a cloud through the day. Our first stop was my hotel room as I had a present for her and she had present for Erez and me. My present was something called a grand marble loaf – a light buttery croissant type loaf that was marbled with green tea and red bean paste baked into the dough – it was quite delicious.
Next stop was the Bikan Historical Quarter. Norie had a rough idea of what she wanted to see. First thing we did was get tickets for the canal boat tour. The tours were sold out until 1:30 where there were just two spots left. We snapped them up. We wandered around a bit and then went into the Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft. In it there were example of things used in everyday life that people had put great effort into making by hand. Some of the artifacts were quite old. It reminded me of how much we take for granted in life. When we need something, we just pop out to the dollar store or some other place to buy it, but back then, everything you used was made by hand. Some examples were: vintage tansu cabinets, storage chests. hand woven baskets, handmade tools from metal or wood, and some everyday and ceremonial clothing made from various interesting materials. I found it fascinating. The exhibit also included artifacts from other places in the world, perhaps for comparison. Here are some examples:
Here is an antique loom:
A period example of a room with a hearth.
This is a kimono that was woven from wood fibres, some dyed with indigo, and then appliquéd on top with hand dyed cotton and embroidery – an exquisite amount of work went into it. Zoom in for a good look 🙂
Here are two more examples of the hand dyed indigo stencilled fabric – some were designed using batik methods, again – so much work went into them.
When we finished at the museum it was almost time for our lunch reservation. On the walk there, we soaked up more of the atmosphere:
Lunch was a predetermined bento box and was delicious. As always, there were new things to try that I had never seen before, and the presentation was so beautiful, I almost didn’t want to eat it.
We talked so long during lunch, we almost missed our boat. When we got out of the restaurant, Norie was looking around to see what to do next and I reminded her that we had boat tour tickets. What came next was us comically sprinting through the Historic quarter, hoping the boat wouldn’t leave without us, and we didn’t know exactly where we were going. We got to the dock just in the nick of time, the tour guide gently scolding us for being late, commenting on the fact that we were supposed to be there a certain amount of minutes (I didn’t hear him exactly above the pounding of my heart, having sprinted to get there) before the embarkation time. They quickly gave us our woven hats to wear and we set off.
Our guide then told us that he was going to sing a traditional wedding song for us. Here is a small sample 🙂
We passed the Ohara Museum of Art which we visited later on in the afternoon:
This is a 140 year old tree!
This area is understandably a popular place for wedding photo shoots. We saw at least two couples wandering around posing with a photographer:
Our next stop was “Jeans Street”. Because Kurashiki is famous for producing over 70% of the denim in Japan, this was a specific tourist attraction. About a 15 min car ride away is the Kojima area where the factories are, and there are many more denim-related things to see including a museum about the history of Jeans and denim. In this area, there were many “denim themed” snacks you could try:
The denim stores had many creative denim items for sale. We came back here with Maria as she is a denim enthusiast. She just graduated from her fashion degree and for her final exhibition, she designed and made some pretty innovative interesting pieces from denim, including a floor-length denim formal gown that looked pretty spectacular.
Here are some pretty cool things you could buy that were not “jeans”.
Notice spelling of “jeans” in the above brand name 🙂 Cute play on words.
Here was a chill-out corner for people to take a break:
Lastly, here are a few examples of a few cool denim clothing items you could buy:
Our next stop was the Ohara Museum of Art. It was established in 1930 by Ōhara Magosaburo, an influential businessman in Kurashiki. It was the first collection of Western art to be permanently exhibited in Japan. In the beginning, it mostly contained French paintings and sculptures of the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection then expanded to paintings of the Italian Renaissance and of the Dutch and Flemish artists of the 16th and 17th centuries. American and Italian artists were also included. Currently, the museum has expanded to several buildings, including exhibits of Asian pottery and sculpture (many buddha heads discovered in caves in China) as well as a crafts area.
This collection was amassed in consultation with the famous artist Kojima Torajiro (1881–1929) (yes you may have noticed the Jean brand is called Kojima) and the French artist Edmond Aman-Jean. (1860–1935). In the exhibits we learned a lot about the intercultural exchange between the European artists and the Japanese artists of the 1900s. I remember being in Amsterdam at the Van Gogh museum and there was an exhibit of Japanese Block prints to recognize the inspiration and influence this art had on his work. Kojima was a fascinating artist. He studied in Europe and tried to emulate all different European styles, some of which were on exhibit in the museum. He was incredibly talented. I found it so inspiring to read about how artists on both sides of the ocean were striving for intercultural communication and exchange during a time where countries really kept to themselves for the most part, especially in light of the wars that had been going on in the first half of the 20th century. We were not allowed to photograph anything in the museum, so here is a photo of Norie and me outside, as well as a couple of photos I took before I realized that it was not allowed. We were lucky not to be thrown out – those docents are pretty hard core.
Below was a piece that I saw in one of the pavilions at the open air museum but was not allowed to photograph – we had misunderstood one of the docents, and I thought in this area photographs were allowed so I snapped this one before I was scolded. I am assuming it was a bronze cast from the same mold.
I know this post is getting long, so I will create a new post for the rest of the day.