Friday, September 9, 2011

Koreatown and The Ancient Greece Exhibition

Today I went to Tokyo to go to Koreatown and Ueno with my friend.
About Koreatown, we went there to have lunch. Last time when I visited the place, a lunch I had was so delicious. So I wanted to have lunch at the same restaurant again.

The town is located in Shin-okubo. It's very famous place, especially among the people who like Korean food or Korean idols.
In the town, there are many Korean restaurants and idle goods shops. Walking down the street, you can see many hangeul characters.


As my plan, I went to the restaurant where I visited before and I ordered the same set meal which I ordered before.
This set meal had rice, grilled ribs with bones, kimchi (korean pickles), namul (marinated food), Korean miso soup, Korean dried seaweed, and so on.
I want to say about why I added "Korean" to "miso soup" and "dried seaweed". Because these are different from Japanese miso soup and dried seaweed xD


After lunch, we went to a K-pop goods shop. In the shop, they were selling Korean idol goods, cosmetics and snacks.
I'm not a big K-pop fan, so I bought only my favorite Korean snacks.
Ah, but I like Taeyang of BIG BANG so much. I found his Live DVD at the shop. I wanted to get it, but it was too expensive. lol xD


After the shopping, we went to Ueno.
Our purpose for today was The Ancient Greece Exhibition which is held at The National Museum of Western Art in Ueno.


There were some copied works outside of the entrance doors. In those copies, there were Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker" and "The Gate of Hell"



While we were seeing these works, an old man talked to us. Maybe, he was a volunteer curator. He told us a lot about Rodin and some historical stories which are related to art.
He gave us some important words.

"You can learn about art from text books without seeing them. But the important thing is not knowing about them as knowledge but actually seeing them. And I want you to have interests in many things."

The real things and the pictures of them are so different. Seeing something carefully and thinking about it give the ability of imagination and creation. I think these abilities are very important to live :)

At the exhibition, there were a lot of artistic things including decorated vases, statues, and tools which were used in the fight.
I was surprised by the technique of ancient Greeks. It's unbelievable that they had techniques to make miniature metal sculptures when Japanese people began making earthenware pots.



Moreover I was impressed by many works which were made as personification.
For example, there were personification of grapes, old, and desire.



At the museum, I was surprised so many times. lol x)
Anyway, I enjoyed a lot at the museum.
I like the history and culture of ancient Greece. But I became more like ancient Greece today x)

Finally, we had dinner at a restaurant. I ate delicious cake for dessert.
It was sooooo beautiful. So I took a picture xD


I slept only 3.5 hours last night. So I'm very sleepy now....
I'm sorry if I made many mistakes due to my half-sleeping head xD
Thank you for reading this post. See you again!! :D