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 ...

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.  Th...

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 int...

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 ph...

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 . ...

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 muse...

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.   ...