*Photo notes at the bottom...*
Last Sunday, Dr. Hammatori took Shipshewana and I to a couple of spots in Nishio.
First was the mysterious building.
This is a huge building with what looks like an observatory on it, which has meddled with my curiosity ever since I came to Nishio. Finally a few months ago I thought to ask the doctor about it (Eureka!). Of course Dr. Hammatori knows everyone and about everything in Nishio.
The mysterious sand-colored-rock and green-copper-topped building belongs to his friend, another doctor in town and coincidentally the owner of the hospital that the gap guys from the UK (i.e. Shipshewana and Minority) volunteer at. And it is in fact... an observatory! But with no telescope. Zannen, ne. Too bad, huh. But still curious, we went Sunday to check it out.
So here's the story, though a little anticlimactic. The doctor's great-grandfather was an amateur astronomy enthusiast, and built the building and the observatory. But, he died before he could have the telescope installed. :\ really tragic.
He also was an avid reader, and he and his son accumulated QUITE a collection of books--medical, and everything else. They had a fancy system installed for the library... well, I guess I lot of university libraries have these, but UIndy isn't quite high tech enough... it's the system where, when you walk into room, it just looks like another wall, but then you select the row you need, and the wall automatically opens to that row of books... you get it, right? so automatic library system... kind of amazing for a home library. So TONS of books, right? Enough to make any decent English major quiver with excitement (even if all the books are indeed in Japanese). There were medical books from Edo Period (circa 1603 - 1868), and even an original copy from before Edo (!). We were enthralled.
It was the doctor's building caretaker who was showing us around, a retired engineer (who also happens to be Dr. Hammatori's friend ^_^ of course). He said we could take a book if we wanted to. =O The row he had opened up in the big library room was art. So Shipshe and I both took a couple of books of Japanese art. :D I also found one, half in English, about the temple Kiyomizu in Kyoto. (The most culturally important city in Japan, hugely old, and not too far west of us.) Excited. We enjoyed coffee with the caretaker after that, and then we had to go.
Second was the museum of red paintings.
Dr. Hammatori also wanted to take us to this small museum/showroom in Nishio. The artist’s name is Goroh Saitoh, and is, well, famous as far as I can tell. He uses red in all of his paintings. His trademark. The museum was wonderful, and even more so because so many of the pieces’ themes were of places I could recognize from Mikawa Bay (this area we live in). Wonderful. Nishio matcha... festivals… rivers.. trains...
But that’s not the half of it. There’s the Mona Lisa, too. The Mona Lisa is, of course, in the Louvre, and no one is allowed to paint it. Before, the only person that ever copied it was Monet. But Saitoh-san was allowed to copy. So now, only two people have ever copied it :D It's funny, it looks out of place sitting among the high-saturated reds of the Mikawa Bay scenes.
Saitoh-san was a really interesting guy and he showed us lots of things, like the professional sumo wrestler’s costume he created for the wrestler to wear during the opening ceremonies of the tournaments. And he had a costume that the participants in this incredible festival near us in Hazu city—the Fire Festival—wear, I think so he could look at it while he painted scenes of the festival. I tried it on :D And he and his father also collect antiques, so he showed us tons of those, and lots of pictures, and told us about this Asian artists event they had at the world trade center. He painted the poster art for the world trade center event, too, and let us have a copy of the poster. Really interesting guy. Such a good time visiting with him and his museum.
An art saturation day. I hope you can enjoy some of the photos. They show a little of our little hometown, and the sites and people of this area too ^_^.
PHOTO NOTES:
1 - The Mona Lisa randomly displayed on a telephone pole somewhere in Japan. I think of Kira when I see this. I feel like I've been to the corner, but I must've missed the Mona Lisa hanging there. I didn't post a picture of his real copy of the Mona Lisa.. I like this one better ^_^
2 - A view of the mysterious building from Dr. Hammatori's condo in the new and very tall Zelk Tower in the middle of Nishio.
3 - Enthralled over one of the medical books. This is the reprint of the book from the Edo period.
4 - A fuzzy view of one of the main pieces in the showroom. We're standing in front of it in a later photo. This is rice. In the forefront is hands making a ball of motchi (rice cake.. a sweet thing). Follow the fields of rice to the top for a history of rice and Japan, and hidden awesome things like the Mona Lisa (in that first wooden shed building on the right), Super Mario! (behind the second barn on the right above the first), and historical figures and stuff ^_^.
Also, this one and the next one really show how his paintings/silkscreens are similar to the woodblock prints of old... scenes of common places and common people of Japan. So captivating, huh?
5 - Dr. Hammatori's favorite. A boy hitting a golf ball off of a boat in the Furigawa River, where it hits Kira and the ocean. Also note the red train at the top! Meitestu is the train line around here, and the regular local trains are red! Very much a part of our lives ^_^
6 - Shipshe, the artist Goroh Saitoh, and me in front of the rice painting.
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Thus we enjoyed a long afternoon playing in the water, listening to the piped in music on the loud speaker radio mixed with the waves.... I brought my little kite along.. it looked like a cute cicada doing colorful antics above the imported palm trees ^_^ Our bay area isn't so paradise-eque... they have imported the palm trees and the sand is actually not natural but brought in from the south of Japan.. and they renamed the beach Waikiki Beach so it feels more like paradise... it's still not quite the same as Hawaii I don't think ^_^, but it's warm ocean water and bright sunshine ^_^ So we are exponentially happy with it. 
