Museum Hopper

When I was in Tokyo, I actually ended up going to Senso-Ji Temple twice!  I went on Friday (right before my rain soaked visit to the Edo-Tokyo museum ).  Then after doing a walking tour with some of my coworkers, two of us ended up back at Senso-Ji on Saturday. What a cool temple!  First, it is really in the middle of the city.  It goes from bustling city to a sacred (but still very bustling) temple.  The shrine was crazy busy in the rain, and also crazy busy on the weekend (obviously).   PS I love this photo! On my second visit, Chariti and I were actually approached by five university students who wanted to practice their English.  They were part of their university's English club who occasionally goes to the temple to practice.   It was great because I was able to get all my questions answered from the day before...including where the sandals of the gods were.  As you can see in the picture below, I am not sure why I could not find them on Friday. Another q

After the shrine, I walked to the Edo Tokyo Museum .   I had contemplated getting a cab, but unfortunately due to the rain, I could not find one.  I was soaked by the time I arrived...and cold (as you can see with the fogged up glasses).   I start with this as a preamble because I am very sure this impacted my view of this museum.   This museum focuses on the history of Tokyo; it started with when Tokyo was known as Edo .  It has been the third capital of Japan and has held that role since 1603.   You start at the top of the museum and work your way down.  The museum is fantastic for children as it is quite hand's on and full of interactive displays.  It starts out with large scale replicas of different buildings from different periods within Tokyo.  One was a theater, Nakamuraza.  Inside the theater, you could see a replica of a play with life-sized actors.   They also have a number of smaller scale models.  The level of detail is remarkable.  They have small magni

While I was in Tokyo, I wanted to hit the top museums, but at the same time, realized I did not have a ton of a time available.  Going to the Tokyo National Museum was a natural, easy decision. The museum is at the northern end of Ueno Park , which has a number of Tokyo's museums, similar to Berlin's museum island or even how Madrid has a number museums centered around the Prado.   The Tokyo National Museum is a museum compound of different museums.  I focused on the Honkan museum, which has the Japanese collection.  I also went into the Heiseikan collection. The Honkan had a wonderful brochure that pointed out the highlights in the collection.  I also really liked the stamps on the exhibit descriptions about " important cultural item "  This museum really had everything you would htink of when considering traditional Japanese items of cultural importance.   Based on my visit to the DIA to visit their Samurai exhibit , I have been really interested in the c

One of the mornings in Amsterdam, I met my dad at the Verzetsmuseum .  In English, the museum name translates to the Dutch Resistance Museum.  It felt like an appropriate activity for Rosh Hashanah.   It was an interesting contrast to Norway's Resistance Museum . It was one of those deceptive museums -- that looks like it is going to be really small and quick to go through.  This one quickly proved me wrong!   It was very interactive and multimedia.  I believe it had recently been renovated and redone.   It walks through what Amsterdam and by extension, the Netherlands experienced during WWII from May 1940 through the end of WWII.  It showed what the Netherlands was like leading up to the raise of Hitler in adjacent Germany.   I found the museum really well laid out.  It had a number of objects and interactivity.  There were videos, first person narratives to listen or read, objects saved from that time period, and photographs.   I did find it a little difficult at time

About a month ago, I went to Van Gogh museum with my dad.  He got off the red eye and pretty soon after we showed up at the Van Gogh museum at 10:30.   It was fairly crowded for 10:30 AM on a Sunday.  I would always recommend buying a ticket in advance.  It is pretty easy and they seem to be available even just the day before.   The new entrance is very well designed.  It provides some much needed extra space in the museum.  They have moved the gift shop and the entrance.  It gives so much more breathing room.  It also makes the first floor workable gallery space.   I loved the progression of self portraits on the first floor.  You can see how Van Gogh's style changed throughout the years. Every time I visit the museum, I learn/focus on something new.  This time it was how prolific Van Gogh was in, what really was, a short amount of time.  He went to Paris in 1886 where he was introduced Bernard and Gauguin .  At this point, he started evolving his style and his distinct

I was recently in England for a global conference.  I ended up staying through the weekend.  Before I went, I was scanning through my Goldman Sachs Alumni newsletter.  I happened to go all the way to the end (which doesn't always happen) when I saw that they were the main sponsor of a new exhibit, Picasso Portraits   at the National Portrait Gallery .  I knew I had to go! I bought my friend and I tickets advanced.  Highly recommend. There was a significant queue to buy tickets, but with advanced purchase, we could move to a very short line.   The exhibit was really great.  It is one large loop and is primarily in chronological order.   I continue to be amazed by Picasso's earlier work .  It is so lifelike and realistic.  It demonstrates that to bend the rules you need to know the rules, and Picasso definitely knew the rules.  Matt would probably get mad if I didn't mention how obsessed I was with how many different museums, collections these paintings, sculptures ca

I have wanted to visit the Schloss Neuschwanstein FOREVER.  It is about 2 hrs outside of Munich, so I had never been able to pull it off with my short trips before.  I mean, look at it?!?! The logistics to get there from Munich are a little complicated.  There is a train/bus combination that works or you can sign up to take a large tourist bus.  Since we ended up going with our three other friends (so five of us in total), we ended up renting a car for the dya.  We were staying across the street from the main train station in Munich, so this was pretty easy to do.  It gave us a little more flexibility.   We purchased tickets in advance. Please pay close attention to what time you are purchasing your tickets for.  It is recommended that you arrive an hour before that.  We had a little bit of confusion about what time was listed on the tickets.  The time bolded on the tickets is the latest you can pick up your tickets for.   We then took the bus up to the look out point as oppo

Once we wrapped up at Schloss Hellbrunn, we headed to the Hohensalzburg Fortress .  At the bottom of the hill, you can buy a ticket up to the top.  We ended up buying the "basic" ticket .  We did not think the extras were worth it, particularly with how late we were getting to the fortress. To get up there, we took the funicular!  I think those are so much fun! The views from the top were awesome.  It is well worth visiting purely for that.  Here are a few samples: This museum gave us a real picture of the development of Salzburg.  It took us through the development of the castle and the fortress.  The audio tour was helpful and really gave context and the history of the fortress. The views really were fantastic.  We had a 360 view of the valley. Time in fortress: 2.5 hrs Times visited: 1 Overall: A-

While we are in Salzburg, Jason and I went to both of the Mozarteums .  They are comprised of both Mozart's birth place and residence.  We ended up buying the joint ticket, but doing the museums on two separate days. We went to the residence first.  I will say the first one put me to sleep.  Something about the structured music was extremely soothing for me!  The residence is on the north side of the river.  The birth place is on the south side of the river. I learned a lot about his family and how his early talent was nurtured.  His father, Leopold Mozart , was a gifted musician and quickly identified it in his children.   Mozart often performed with his sister, Nannerl , who was extremely gifted in her own right.   I often forgot how Mozart really had not been alive that  long ago.  You could easily trace his travels through Europe to cities that we had often wanted to travel to ourselves!  At the same time, he traveled by carriage!  I could not even imagine!   I cannot

After Vienna/Wien, we took the train over to Salzburg.  Jason planned most of this stop, which was much appreciated.  One goal was to truly experience Sound of Music AND Mozart !  I think he did a wonderful job achieving both!   We rented bikes and went out to Schloss Hellbrunn .  It was about a twenty minute ride out there; it was also the most upright we had ridden in forever!   There were a few key items to see at Schloss Hellbrunn : The gazebo/glass house from Sound of Music The trick fountains The museum  A little history on the schloss -- it was built as a pleasure castle for entertainment during the day.  It actually had no bedrooms! Let me start with the numerical order although this does not align with how we actually spent our time!  We did get to see it!  It was covered with lots of tourists who were also on their own Sound of Music pilgrimage.  Jason even mentioned to get a picture with no one else in it!  This is where they sing "I am sixteen going on s

On Monday, we headed to the Belvedere !  What a beautiful museum.  It is composed of two main buildings plus some outliers.  It is within the city of Vienna.   We only went to the upper building.  Outside the building, they had a number of pieces by the Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei.  I love his art and have now seen it in a number of venues. Most of his art that I have seen is paintings.  This was all "sculptures" or other 3-D art, which was cool. Below is a picture of life jackets made to look like lotus flowers to represent the refugee crisis.  Unfortunately, we could not take picture of the rest of the art since it was in the museum.   I wanted to go there to see the Klimt masterpieces again.  I had not seen many of them since early in the creation of this blog (one of the first ten posts!!).  I saw them when I had visited the  Neue Gallery  in New York City.   think this museum had the highest concentration of paintings on my " 1001 paintings " ever --

After visiting the Kunsthistoriches Museum, we walked five minutes to the Albertina Gallery.   We had one painting to check off the list in the Albertina, The Hare .  It is by Albrecht Durer.  It is so simple and yet so detailed and precise.  As you look closely, I got taken in by how realistic it is.  Many theories exist how he painted the details -- perhaps he captured this rabbit and used it as a model.  This rabbit seems to be a bit of a mascot for Vienna.  They have large ones all over the city! The gallery had great exhibits going on.   The " Monet to Picasso " exhibit was fantastic.  What wasn't to like.  After the Kunsthistoriches, it seemed so bright and cheerful.  This was a great preview of the modern era of art.   I really liked this Monet and Degas paintings.  I love the colors and the texture of the paintings.  It is a great summary of the modern painting era. They also had an exhibit on " Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh: Ways of Pointillism