Opera City

Day 28 (-2) Tea and coffee.

While I love the iced tea, hot tea, green tea, coffee in its varied forms it is important to keep an eye on the price.Today was the first time I got caught out with a price (must have been the distraction of Celia's company,) Celia and I stopped for a break and shared a lovely fruit topped slice (428y) and two iced teas When we left the bill was 1,728y!! Turns out the iced tea were 650y each!! Usually they are 400y at their most excessive.

We did some shopping today, having a great time in the stationery store buying all sorts of Japanese design post-it notes, cards and Celia got a new diary; their designs are so pretty and appealing. The Artre Centre at Meguro station is a collection of stores in an open space and has some nice clothes, shops as well as the the stationery,book shop, records, bakery and cosmetics.
We went on to the Tokyo Opera City building to see a Photography exhibition of Japanese and Australian stuff. It was fascinating, but a bit too 'different' for my liking; I mean some photos you couldn't see what you were looking at!!
But adjacent to that was an exhibition of paintings of ASADA Hiroshi (1931-1997),whose family were renowned nihonga (Japanese-style paintings) artists. Asada's work is very different 'a world of serene imagined scenery that can be described as figurative poetry through the medium of painting". Not quite how I describe it! but we really enjoyed that so it was worth the trip and entrance fee.
The Opera city building has a wide open courtyard (L) for small concerts, I've seen people there in good weather, and other artistic installations (below).
The foyer of the centre is a huge pink marble area with two life size statues of an artist placed 50 meters from each other.
We also visited the NTT Intercommunication Centre (ICC) that is an innovative facility opened in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of telephone service in Japan (1990), and has interesting sound displays.
The white skittle shape (r) has a screen on the other side and is aimed at the stairs. As someone walks by it snaps images and plays them back in random order so you see the person (yourself) in a staccato sort of dance. There was also a table with small white and black rectangle and as you moved past they moved and emitted sound and turned towards you. A bit like walking in a field of triffids!!
For lunch we went down to the food court, and had lunch at a Korean restaurant, avoiding the Kim-chi (hot chilli) and had this delicious noodle dish, in a delicate broth with sort of prosciutto.
We also booked on the Shinkansen to go to Kyoto and stop in Hamamatsu on the way back. It's a tight schedule. but we got the seats we wanted and have it down to the fine minute. Trains leaving at 9:07 and arriving 11:48.