3 nights' stay at the APA Hotel and Resort:
$231.45
Admission to the world's largest hobby figure trade show:
¥2500.
Being one of the first people in the world to see your current anime obsession take 3D form:
Priceless.
Since the school closure started time has gotten a little wonky, kind of like it does on vacation. There's little to differentiate one day from the next. A day and half into this strange state, it occurred to me that if I was ever going to rectify the lapse in judgement on which I based my decision NOT to go to WonderFest the last two years, there was no time like the present. Although my school is still working, we're only in the building a few hours each day, since our classes take place online, thus I figured there was no reason why my admin would say no.
Well, it wasn't quite as simple as that, but it's amazing what you can claim as professional development when you teach art. Since I am not above using such flimsy excuses for my own evil means,* bright and early Friday, February 7th saw me cursing humanity on an early flight to Tokyo. There are all sorts of things written that tell you what WonFest is all about, so I'm going to skip the in-depth explanation of the figure industry and garage kits in favor of telling you about my experience.
I didn't go early. I considered it, but there wasn't anything I felt like I'd die if I didn't get, and I knew I was going to torture my feet enough as it was. So instead I walked across from the hotel at 10 and got in line...eventually. It was a little tricky figuring out where to start. There's a system of elevated walkways around Makuhari Messe , and after crossing over the street I could see the mob trudging forward, but wasn't sure how to join in. I ended up walking through the top part of the exhibition hall (a sukoshi bit jealous of the people who were already inside) and out next to hall 5, where I took the escalator down to buy my "ticket," a 2kg book of all the exhibitors, from whence I joined the horde.
I'd seen photos on Twitter of the diehards standing in a line wrapped all the way around the building and it gave me pause, but I really wasn't standing around long. I didn't slow down til I got to the back of the building, and by the time I'd read one page of the homework I'd been putting off for two weeks, my wait was over. I was being shuffled into the industry side, which was halls 1-3, and it only took a moment for me to spot GoodSmile's banner, way in the back, and start my beeline there. The cat was out of the bag as far as discovering Hanako-kun was going to be a nendo, thanks to social media, but I had to see him IRL. Before I could track him down, though, I found another treasure - a 1/7 scale figure of Hyakkimaru. I'd seen images of this sculpt last year on Twitter and mourned the fact that he wasn't for sale, so this was a big shock - so much that for a minute I thought he was the sample Figma.
Have you ever thought about what you would do if you could commit one crime without any consequences? Well, I figured out my answer that day. I'm not sure if I would have stolen Hanako-kun's prototype or Hyakkimaru's, but I definitely would've walked away with one of them. Sadly there was no way I could've pulled it off, so I'll be waiting another six months (if not longer...thanks, coronavirus), but I guess that's better than prison. Probably.**
There were other interesting announcements - mostly things I knew the Kawaii Kingpin would be glad to hear about. Inuyasha's nenoroid prototype was there, but I was more interested in the noodle stop FuRyu's releasing as a prize in September. At first I thought it was a scale, that's how badass it looked. They finally had a prototype of Hyakkimaru from ther f:Nex line as well, but that was such an utter disappointment, especially since GoodSmile's was of such a high quality. MegaHouse had their Kimetsu no Yaiba prototypes on display, including some very kawaii little chibi Hashiras, but I was bitter that they hadn't painted Tomioka-san in the two and a half months since I caught my first glimpse of him online.
I also felt a strange mix of indignation and satisfaction over two of GoodSmile's displays. The first greeted me at the entrance to their area: their range of Fate series figures arranged like a Hina matsuri display. As you might remember I did that with MY nendoroids last March. THEN I came across FOUR new Bungou Stray Dogs nendoroids...the same four they've already made, but dressed up like their key visual for the Narita Anime Deck promotion that begins next month. What you may not realize is that when they announced the rerelease of Dazai and Chuuya I was a little cranky. Dazai was my one valuable nendoroid, and by flooding the market with more of him my net worth plummeted. So I commented on the announcement that instead they should have released him in a different format, suggesting the Black era, so my investment portfolio wouldn't suffer, but they'd still make money hand over fist. Well, here they are. With all these ideas of mine they're using, they really ought to be paying ME, not the other way around.
After making my way around the industry area (giving the +18 caves a side-eye and a wide berth...my curiosity wasn't worth standing in line and then being stuck in an enclosed space with a bunch of hentai dudes), I began my trek through the jungle of garage kits. The exhibition floor is a teeming mass of humanity, strewn with islands of amateur figures self-produced in small quantities,*** and most mortals have no hope of discerning whether they are passing the same big-breasted, scantily clad anime girl for the third time. Once upon a time my friend Raycie taught me the survivial skills necessary for such life or death situations in the bead-encrusted corridors of Dongdaemun's fabric market. A plan of attack is crucial if you want to make it out alive. But even knowing this, I almost got sucked in and lost my way. Doubting even my own mind, I somehow found myself at the furthest corner and began circling each table. After making it the width of halls 7 and 8 I became confident enough to adjust my tactic, bobbing back and forth between the two sides of the aisle in order to cover more ground. It. Was. Madness. I loved every second of it, even if my feet hated me by the time it was over.
Still, it was not an endless parade of bishies and ikemen. I'd been following #wf2020w for two weeks on Twitter, hoping to discover what I would blow all my yen on, but I'm sad to say the industry still caters primarily to men. Most of the really nice garage kits were of female figures. Most of the male ones depicted OP, repulsively muscular dudes. And of course, a bunch of these - in my humble opinion - really tacky plastic monster things that for some reason Japanese guys dig.**** And that's sad because there was a definite female presence - both shopping and selling.
For example, my must-buy Twitter find was sculpted by a female artist. She made alternate hair parts for Hyakkimaru's nendoroid, to depict the bandage he wears around his head after he gets his hearing back. She was admiring my Boku no Hero skirt and when she realized I was buying her work, got excited and shook my hand, coronavirus be damned! Her neighbor stall, also run by a woman, was selling custom nendoroid legs. That probably sounds a bit weird, but there aren't enough sitting nendoroid parts, and since I'm delving deeper and deeper into the black hole of customizing, I figured I'd find a use for them at some point. There were clothes for a whole range of ball-jointed dolls, although these I resisted, my previous purchase of two nendoroid dolls notwithstanding. Finally, just as my strength was about to give out, I came across a guy selling - I shit you not - a small kit of Wotakoi's Hirotaka in his online game avatar. For only 300 yen. So I snagged that, too.
One thing I shouldn't have worried about was not having enough cash. When I left the hotel I didn't know what I was going to find, and wasn't sure the ¥10,000 I had would be enough. Makuhari Messe has ATMs but not currency exchange machines, so I exchanged another hundred dollars to be safe before heading over. And then when I made my first purchase I realized that they took credit cards - a fact that would have been helpful to know beforehand. So there's my "WonFest for Noobs" exclusive.
Apart from the industry announcement and the possibility of buying anything it was personally worth it to me as a creator. At some point during the day I decided that someday I'm going there to sell my plushies. There were very few stalls selling anything soft and cuddly, and none were as adorable as mine (maybe I'm not the most impartial judge of such things, but since impartiality is apparently out of fashion this year, I guess I'll have to live with that). At any rate, I've got a willing assistant lined up for when that day comes, so now all I have to do is learn to use a sewing machine. Because at some point in the last few years I realized that I'll never be able to sell my fuzzy friends commercially unless I mech out.
*Will I use it in class? I give it a 50/50 chance, mostly dependent on how much time I get to spend messing around before fall. Will I give a workshop for our next PD day, as said admin suggested? Yes, but not about WonFest...but that's a subject for a different blog.
**Remember my last post? About rules?? Well, some rules are made to be broken. For the record, I feel like I can justify breaking this rule because I don't technically have my nendoroid yet.
***Apparently I am going to tell you what a garage kit is...blame it on my coursework. I kept getting pissed off because one author kept using a word without defining it, so I'll do you the favor of learning from his fail.
****Or so I assume - I can't imagine girls of any nationality digging these things.
We're three and a half weeks into the government mandated school shut-down, and just found out that we've got another month after this. I'm struggling. I miss my kids, I miss my routine - I have nothing to do! For some reason when I have all the time in the world I just don't feel like I need to do anything. All the sewing and sketching and (ahem) cleaning that I'd want to do while I was at work on a normal day just doesn't feel that urgent. Besides that, all public gatherings up to and including church have been cancelled - they've even called off one of Mongolia's two big celebrations, Tsagaan Sar. So don't blame me for a bit of a puff piece, because I don't really have anything else to write about. As you'll learn in my next post, I recently went through the looking-not-touching-glass (because, you know. Quarantine.) on a magical shopping adventure. But here's the thing: coming back to Mongolia may have brought me a return to disposable income, but I am WAAAY too happy funneling it into the figure industry. The claustrophobic aisles leading between tightly packed shelves are an easy place to lose your way, and a girl needs guideposts to keep from getting lost in the mists of darkness. These are mine.
Rule #1: One character, one figure
This is my most important rule, and some people might disagree strongly with it. It started as a rule of necessity - back when I was leaving Japan I asked myself if I needed BOTH the Roy Mustangs I had, and that made packing easier, if not the actual deciding. Even if I wasn't nomadic, I think I'd stick with this one - the collections I've seen of endless Hatsune Mikus and Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blades are a little creepy. Of course the otome perspective makes this a little easier to live by: rarely do we get more than one or two versions of the male characters we love (if that). I’ve stuck pretty well with this rule, and currently only have two duplicates: my Eraserheads (there was no way I was giving up the Pop my little brother gave me when I got his prize figure. Hell, do Pops even count???) and Levis, but I'm planning on selling his nendoroid when I get the chance. Still, the temptation does come up from time to time, and I've had to make some tough decisions.
Kamado Tanjiro, Deluxe Version. By Aniplex
Rule #2: It's okay to splash out on male figures...
I don't want to talk to you about how much I spent ordering the yet-to-be-released deluxe version of Aniplex's Tanjirou figure. Suffice it to say it didn't come cheap (and it hasn't gotten any cheaper, thank fuck). However, I've seen male figures go for absolutely ridiculous sums of money in the aftermarket - the only reason I was able to find my Yato figure for less than $300 was because he has damage to one of his swords. So I say that if you're buying new, go for it. For used figures, I try to use my best judgement. Sometimes figures get rereleased - GoodSmile does this a lot with their nendoroids - but that seems to depend a lot on how hot the anime is. If it's been several years and there's no whisper of a new season, it might not happen.
Rule #3: ...But don't buy characters you don't know
If I've never read the manga, watched the anime, or played the game, do I really need a figure of that character? That's another question I ask myself. This meant that when I got back from Kyoto last fall and finally did watch Psychopass that I was kicking myself a little for not buying Ko-chan's nendoroid, but it's also helped me to resist buying Ootengu from Onmyoji and Kaworu from Evangelion because I can't be bothered to play/watch their franchises. Both figures are really cool, but in the end they're just a pretty piece of plastic unless I'm invested in their characters.
Ootengu, China exclusive. By Hobby Max
Rule #4: Don't pay more than $70 for a nendoroid.
Half of my collection is these little bastards. I love them, they're hellacute. But their original prices range around 4500-6000 yen. For me, when the price climbs above $70, they just become too expensive. This is one rule that I haven't been tempted to break, although I've owned nendos that were worth more - Hoozuki, who I ended up selling, can go for around $110, and Dazai even more than that, although since he got a rerelease I'm pretty sure his worth has plummeted...and that's why you don't want to sink too much into them. As mentioned above, they do get rereleased pretty often, so their value can be fairly volatile.
Ranma Q-Posket, for old times' sake. Bought, not won.
Rule #5: Don't win your prizes - Buy them
I'm ashamed of how long this rule took me to figure out. Prize figures are among the hardest goods to get out of UFO catchers. Don't be surprised if after plugging the machine full of 100 yen coins you still don't have that damn Rimuru. If you're in it for the thrill of victory and you actually want to waste a small fortune, well, by all means - dozo. But if you're more interested in the figure, do yourself a favor and see if you can buy it instead. If you're not in Akiba, just find your nearest Bookoff+ and see if they have it. The one in Kawasaki was a great source for prizes, but even my small neighborhood Bookoff had a decent range of figures.
Mika and Yuu, by Mens Hdge.
Rule #6: (almost) Never Order In
I've only learned this rule this fall. Once I had disposable income again I didn’t care if shipping was expensive, especially since that Kogami Shinya DX nendoroid I passed on in Kyoto was only 3500 yen online. But I've come to realize that any deals you might be getting are countered by that shipping cost, so I no longer let myself order old figures for delivery. This also helps to ensure the joy of the hunt for the next time I'm in Japan. There is an exception to this one: rare figures. I wholeheartedly believe if you can get a great deal on the Owari no Seraph boys you should 10 million percent go for it.
Mention anime figures to a certified normie, and you might get a look of disgust. Everyone knows what that person is thinking of: attractive, big-busted (possibly underage) women, scantily clad and in anatomically unlikely positions. Well, there’s a reason why that’s a stereotype. There are an awful lot of bishoujo figures out there.
That is not, however, all there is out there. Figures come in a variety of formats, and at different sizes. But the best, in my humble opinion, are the nendoroids I mentioned in my last post. These are figures with exaggerated, “chibi” proportions - huge heads with small bodies. They have interchangeable parts, allowing you to do more with them. They’re smaller than a lot of figures, which means they'll be easier to pack up to your next port of call. Of course, some people think they’re expensive, but those people probably collect Funko Pops (which there’s nothing wrong with, even if the quality of the two can’t even be compared). Plus you can pose them and change their expressions, and even (if you’re tech-savvy and don’t have other things to do with your time) create stop-motion animation using them, as seen in the video below by Dan Von Carr.
However, my favorite thing about nendos (as we hip kids call them) is the fact that they demonstrate greater gender equality. I’m much more likely to find a nendo of a character I like than I am a scale figure. Hell, I think they may actually be planning to make every damn Touken Ranbu character there is, and that’s saying a lot. GoodSmile, the company that makes them, has a tendency to make whole series of characters from given shows.
For example, every one of the Generation of Miracles, from Kuroko no Basuke. One Saturday morning in May, I missed my planned Saturday outing because SOME idiot (ie, the one who writes this blog) volunteered herself to chaperone a 5th grade sleepover. As I sat in the Denny’s near Omori Station, fighting unsuccessfully to get to Asakusa for the annual Edo Firefighter’s Memorial, I checked Goodsmile’s Twitter feed to see whether or not they had FINALLY released any news on the upcoming Hyakkimaru nendoroid (pictured at the top). What I found instead was that there was an event happening in Akiba - WonHobby Gallery 2019. Since I had serious doubts that I was, in fact, going to make it to Asakusa in time, I decided to just stop when I got to Akiba. I’d kinda been meaning to go there soon, anyways...although it perhaps would’ve been better to wait til payday.
The event was like a smaller, less crowded, free version of the Goodsmile booth at AnimeJapan, offering a glimpse into what was coming up from the company. I was a little disappointed that they didn't have any life-size nendos or Nendoroid plushies, until I figured out that their previous announcement was an April Fool’s Day joke. Still, they had a pretty impressive range of upcoming releases to show off. If it weren't for the fact that I don't think I can handle sewing that small, I might even be interested in one of their Nendoroid doll bodies. Since I'm kind of burnt out on sewing at the moment, it wasn't a hard temptation to resist.
But Akiba being what it is, there's always temptation to be found, especially since I got sucked into a new blackhole: nendoroid customizing. See, here’s the thing. Although GoodSmile often releases a bunch of characters from the same show, this is not always the case. Sometimes they’re so busy making new versions of Hatsune Miku that they forget to make the other characters in your favorite show, which is why I’m still waiting for a Sugimoto nendoroid. Although I guess I should be grateful they at least made Asirpa...they’ve never made any of Noragami's characters. Over the course of my second year in Japan, I've been thinking about this more and more. Seeing the expansion pieces - Nendoroid More, as they're called - which allow you to dress up your characters differently, or give them different expressions, got me wondering if it might be possible to frankenstein some characters (cobble together a new creation from spare parts - get it?). It didn't really click, though, until I remembered how cheap I've found some nendoroids in my rambles about town. I realized that if you could find them for a decent price, it might not be so terrible to take a figure apart, make some color changes, and reconstruct it to create a new character.
Well, as it turns out, that's totally a thing. When I started trying to figure out whose hair would work for a Shinra nendoroid I stumbled across the community of nendoroid customizers online. One enterprising couple even created an online shop - the aptly named ChibiChopShop - where they buy and sell parts from nendoroids that have been split up. I'm looking for such specific things that I've only used them once, but when I discovered them, they had the only things I wanted - the hair and faceplates from nendoroid 151, Moritaka Mashiro. With the Nendoroid More doctor body I'd already found on eBay, all I needed was a pair of glasses and probably a little paint to make my first nendoroid, Celty, her own Shinra. He needs a lot of work - the hair’s the wrong color, and the face isn’t right - but once I’m reunited with my supplies in Mongolia, we’ll get there.
And that, of course, opened the floodgates. I had so many ideas that it was tough to decide which to pursue first...but since the pieces basically fell into my lap I started working on my first anime love, Yato.
I found Takagi Akito from Bakuman (#152, from Lashinbang in Kamata)for his body, and Kuroko no Basuke’s Kise Ryota (#1032, again at Lashinbang, this time the big one in Akiba Culture Zone) for his hair, and was able to sell the rest right away through the facebook group for splits. Then I hit up the Volks near Yokohama station on my way home from work one night and spent a good half hour deliberating over paints (ie, the ones that are waiting for me in Mongolia now - this post is kind of back and forth all over the place). Since I really had zero clue what the heck I was doing, I based my educated guess on the name of the paint. Very scientific, I know. Then I got to work, in a painstakingly (or paints-takingly) slow manner. Only to quickly realize the paint was much glossier than I wanted. Back I went for cleaner and advice. There’s still work to do on it, but for now, I’m pretty happy with how he’s looking.
In the midst of all this I made what may be the greatest discovery of all: Goodsmile's facemaker site. This is basically a website that lets you design your own faceplates and have them printed by Goodsmile and shipped to you. The options it gives you are unbelievable. I was a little skeptical at first, but a half an hour later I had designed two expressions for Yato that I had to get printed. The next day I went back to the site, just planning on messing around with it, and ended up ordering two more, I was so impressed with what I’d come up with. The site is in Japanese but with Google chrome that’s almost a non-issue. What might be an issue, though, if you’re not here in Japan is the fact that they only ship to Japan. Both of those issues, however, are covered in this post on Blog DeJapan.
So that’s how I found myself another expensive hobby. Wotakoi’s Nifuji Hirotaka was my third project, and although I still want to repaint his hair, I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve accomplished thus far. I haven’t been forced to do any drastic modifications, but maybe I never will. This past weekend was summer Wonder Festival and GoodSmile announced even more upcoming products - Kaguya-sama, for example, and a painted prototype of both Tanjiro and Nezuko from Kimetsu no Yaiba. What I was really excited about, though, was that they announced a nendoroid of Natsume from Natsume Yuujinchou. I’m not sure that I’ll actually order him - one of the rules I had to impose on myself to get out of Japan was that I was only allowed one figure of any character, and I’ve already got a figure of Natsume.* No, the real value of that announcement to me was, in fact, that there was still hope. That anime from several seasons back might still have nendos coming...sometimes there are copyright issues, after all. Sometimes they have to wait and see if it’ll be lucrative enough to justify making those figures (although I would think the fujoshi fan base of Golden Kamuy would make that a yes). Although it’s nice to rise to an artistic challenge, I’d much rather hold out hope for an official Sugimoto nendoroid, especially with a new season coming up.
If not, I’d settle for a scale figure. I left Japan with more of them than I was expecting, and when I get my apartment put back together, don’t be surprised when the inevitable nesting post highlights my carefully curated collection. I get an extra room this go-round and I know just what to do with it.
*As I mentioned before, nendoroids are small enough that it’s relatively easy to pack them up, especially if you’re willing - as I was, in the end - to get rid of the boxes. So - on the other hand - I might.
With two Golden days left, I got back to Tokyo, and even convinced myself to go to church today...although afterwards I came home to revel the rest of the day away lying in my OWN bed, reading. Which is probably where I should still be, but my dedication to you, oh six faithful readers, knows no bounds.
I managed to find one more magical place to check out in Toyama, Sotoshu Chokei-Ji. Perched up on a hillside on the west side of the Jinzu Kawa, the river that splits the city, it's home to 500 rakan, statues of Buddhist disciples. I've come across temples with schloads of these little statues before, most notably at Nenbutsu-Ji, several trips to Kyoto in the past. What I hadn't really thought about before was why these feature in Buddhist temples. I hadn't realized before researching this blog post that it was a theme, not only in sculpture (landscaping?? Installation??? I'm not sure how you'd classify this, artistically speaking) but also in painting. In Japan it seems like they tend to be memorial in nature, although I wasn't able to track down a specific explanation for the Gohyaku Rakan at Chokei-ji.
But what does seem to be true, not only about the rakan in Toyama but also at other temples is that each is an individual. You might be wondering if it's even possible to create 500 variations on the "bald guy in a robe" formula. In fact, I was reminded (particularly when facing this rakan) of a recent episode of my favorite current anime, Dororo, of a sculptor who tried - and failed - to give a fierce face to a Fudo statue. However, as I made my way from level to level, it seemed like the artists who created these rakan managed it. It's possible I was secretly hoping to find one with an arrow on its head, but apparently these guys never met Aang.
This grouping had a different feel to it than the 1200 at Nenbutsu-Ji. More structured, I guess is the way I'd describe it. The sculptures and their stone lanterns were arranged on terraces ascending the hillside. I found myself wishing it was fall, since it seemed like all of the trees were Japanese maples. Since it wasn't, I played with my new photography skillz, trying to capture the textures of the stone and the moss.
On my way up to the temple I passed the Toyama Municipal Folkcraft Village. I'm pretty sure that I could spend years researching all the different craft traditions of Japan, if only I had the time and money. Since I have neither, I suppose it's just as well that my studies are generally restricted to dolls. And here - for once! - I finally managed to find a doll workshop conveniently located and affordably priced. Sure, it was just a simple ohina-sama doll, but even if it lacked the complexity of my current artist crush, Hiromine Nakamura, I think I did a pretty good job of individualizing mine. I used my own features and an amalgamation of all my best boys, while simultaneously adhering to aesthetics. In fact, I could probably make another 499 of them, to create my own take on the Gohyakurakan. Maybe in my next Japan life.
At the time I graduated from college I couldn't imagine traveling somewhere without going to their art museum. One of my first trips into Seoul during my first Korean sojourn was to see an exhibition of Marc Chagall at Seoul Museum of Art. This hasn't been a constant, though...in spite of a lot of recent art posts, I think I only went to one art show when I lived in Shanghai, and none as far as I can recall in the Middle East. Strangely enough, it wasn't until I started teaching high schoolers again that I started to prioritize getting to art galleries again. But I'm back now, more or less, and have been halfway considering starting a second blog, which would focus on my art and the art I see here. Since it hasn't happened yet, here we art.
My first day out, I came across Kanazawa's art museum. I toyed with the idea of seeing it, and made it as far as the entrance hall, but there was a crazy long line. I'm too lazy at the moment to look back and see if I've told you this before, but I definitely have some lingering culture shock about going to museums here. There were times in the Zanabazar or UB's Modern Art Gallery that I was the only patron. I feel like that would never happen here. The times I've been to a major exhibition I've felt kind of like it's a contact sport. When I looked at the long line at the museum in Kanazawa, I decided I would live to see another day, and walked away.
I mean, c'mon. I live in Yokohama, and Tokyo's a short ride away. What am I supposed to see out in the styx that I can't see here?
The answer to that is, of course, Kusama Yayoi. Even if you don't know her name, there's a pretty good chance you've seen one of her iconic pumpkins (especially if you were reading my blog six months ago). Kusama actually has a museum here, but I lack the patience, perseverance, and timing to get tickets. So when I was looking for what else to see in Matsumoto besides the black castle, and I found out their Museum of Art was in the middle of a huge exhibition, I decided I had to go.
I have to admit in the last few years I've dialed down my phallic tourism (mostly because I've run out of places to go). One of the reasons I was so keen to see an exhibition of Kusama's was because I knew she had created at least one of her "infinity room" installations filled with phallic soft sculptures, and given my weird niche in the travel blog market, I sort of had to see one, and this time luck was with me!
Another thing that I really admire about Kusama is that her work stands as a testimony of the power of art. I'm not going to go too deep into her origin story, but she suffered abuse as a child as well as battling mental illness most of her life. Art was the thing that gave her the power to be strong.
And what amazing art! Usually I don't really dig abstract art, but there is something really playful and energetic about her paintings that just draws you in. Like the Kanazawa museum, there was a line up for tickets, but rather than turning away I just wondered if the other patrons in line with me knew, if they understood what she'd been through, and how fantastic it was she has been able to
turn her suffering into such joyful artworks...or if they just wanted to see the show because she was famous.
The crowds were one of two things that marred the experience for me. The other was that I would have liked to sit down and work in my sketchbook. When I was a student teacher, I remember complaining to my mentor, Lulu,
that the Nelson-Atkins only allowed you to use a soft-leaded, graphite
pencil in the museum. We both found this absurd - after all, the Louvre
will go so far as to let you set up your easel and oil paint on the
premises. I found myself thinking about this after both of the art museums told me all I could use was a pencil. I thought it was particularly ridiculous at the Glass Museum in Toyama, since the works technically couldn't be damaged by the pens or watercolors that I carry around when I'm out adventuring.
As it turns out, though, sometimes inspiration strikes you when you least expect it. Lots of places had koinobori up in the weeks leading to Children's Day, but it wasn't until I saw them flying in rows over a stream in Matsumoto that I was able to see how cool a subject they could make as one of my gou-ashi collage paintings.
And once I got back to Tokyo, that meant that I was going to have to visit the National Art Center. On the train I'd seen the poster for Koinobori Now, their show that featured, I dunno, hundreds, maybe, of stylized windsocks, each made of a different fabric. They were hanging from the ceiling of a huge room, and although they asked you not to touch them, you could walk between them, and even sit down on the bean bags clustered throughout the room. After walking through the stream of carp to the back where they had a paper craft set up, I came back and sat down on one. I looked up at the ceiling, where a sheer fabric was attached, rippling in the breeze from a fan, illuminated by lights that gave the impression of light dancing off the surface of the water. As I watched I felt the most relaxed I'd been all week - a great way to finish my Golden Week.
It took me a while to figure out why my friend Meen sent me a postcard of subway stations when she visited Moscow. The tiny little stamp-sized photos didn't really do the actual places justice, and with the exception of Gyeongbokgung Station in Seoul (which used to have displays of children's art which delighted me each week on my way to church), the metro has always been a very utilitarian aesthetic experience. Close space, lit well enough to see, well-marked, but not works of art. It was only when I began my due diligence for this trip that I figured it out.
Art museums are the vaunted halls of the learned (say that right, please...learn-ed), and there are lots of people, at least in the States, who don't get anything out of them. They feel uncomfortable there, because we've made them sacred temples...don't talk too loud, don't walk too fast, show reverence to the gods of Elementia and Principalis, and their prophets, daVinci and Van Gogh. Call me cynical, but I don't see this getting better anytime soon, because we've also managed to fuck up education - and don't even get me started...I'm an art teacher.
The Russians...actually, let's call a spade a spade...the Soviets have entirely different ideas about who art belongs to. The commie bastards might have fucked up a lot of other things, but their hearts were sort of in the right place. The people were the ones to put up on a pedestal. Art should be accessible to all. Their metro system is designed to reflect this.
After hitting the Kremlin and Red Square, I decided to kill some time on my first day by riding the rails aimlessly, to see what I could find. I started at Okhotny Riad on the red line, it being the closest to the Kremlin, and went one stop. I got out, took a look around at Lubyanka Station, and walked to the transfer on the pink line, Kuznetsky Most. I went another station down the line, to Pushkinskaya, and then walked to its transfer, Chekhovskaya on the grey line. This time I got daring and decided to go for TWO stops, to Mendeleyevskaya. Once again, I got off and walked to the transfer station.
Some of the stations I'd been through thus far had opulence reminiscent of the Winter Palace. There were chandeliers and vaulted ceilings and art deco details. But I hadn't been blown away until I got to my next transfer, Novoslobodskaya.
Jackpot. Novoslobodskaya (yeah, the names are a handful, aren't they?) was everything I didn't realize I needed in a subway station. There was stained glass. There was a mosaic. There were gold moldings adding a subtle emphasis to the arches.
I have to admit I found it a little hypocritical, this enshrinement of art for the people, particularly when I noticed authors or artists in the sculptures and stained glass. Communism and intellectualism aren't exactly friends (if you don't know your history) and although my understanding of that period of human history is not as strong as I would like it to be, I have a feeling that if its leaders had taken better care of their intelligentsia, communism wouldn't have failed quite as direly as it did. The fact that these professions are depicted at all is a bit surprising to me, since a lot of the art seems pretty propagandistic (if that's not a word, I'm making it one), with the working people...with their children, and their dogs, and their chickens, and their jackhammers, and their guns...showing up a lot. But I guess it's the thought that counts.
That satisfied most of my interest in the metro system, but there was one more thing I wanted to check out: the Aquarelle train.
In 2007 (Moscow's Year of the Child), the Aquarelle (aka, Watercolor) train came onto the tracks. It's not just a train - it's an art museum on wheels. Or at least, that's the idea behind it. The windows on one side of each car have been blocked out and those panels have framed works of art hanging on them. In theory, it's a great idea, and I've got to admit, I've been thinking ever since I saw it about how this might look if - theoretically - I could get in touch with one of the bus companies in UB and showcase prints of student work on the bus! But it didn't really seem to work that well in the Moscow metro. See, those paintings take up sitting room, and so there were people (some of whom had the sort of - earthy fragrance - not normally associated with fine art) standing in front of them, which sort of took away from the art gallery experience. Then there's the fact that the doors between cars were locked, so you couldn't move from car to car the way you can on the Seoul Metro, which kind of hindered you from SEEING ALL THE ART!
I spent about 50 minutes waiting for that train this afternoon. Under other circumstances, I might be a little bitter about wasting my time, but hell, I'm on vacation, and I'd already seen my big 2 things AND found the Krispy Kreme (mmmmm, donuts!) As an added bonus, the station that I spent all that time waiting in was Ploschad Revolyutsii, and even though it definitely didn't take 50 minutes to check out all the sculptures in the station, I never got tired of watching people interact with them. Since they were bronze, you could tell where people had touched the sculptures, as the oil in their hands wore off the patina from the metal. The dogs in the sculptures got the most love, and just about everyone who walked past them patted the dog's nose. Some of them just reached out in passing, but others actually set down their parcels to take a moment to pet him.
I'm not much of a dog person, but even I thought that was sweet.
It's my first evening in St. Petersburg, and my feet are killing me. I've been walking a couple of miles each morning for the last several weeks, which has been nice because I've been able to reclaim my territory for the first time in two years and my feet have actually not been punishing me for it, but today that was not the case. I hobbled my way back to my airBnB homestay thing (I'll let you know how that goes round about the time I get back to Mongolia) and have been off my feet pretty much ever since.
It took leaving Irina's (my hostess with the mostest) for me to really start getting excited about St. Petersburg. Getting here was pretty straightforward...I took a shuttle from the airport to the metro, and the metro to a few blocks from Irina's, which I did not quite make it to, but I managed to find an unsecured wifi network and was able to call her on Skype from around the corner, so I made it in the end. She showed me around the flat and explained that they would be gone the next couple of days (which makes me feel like I'm in high school and need to take advantage of the situation...so, hey, if anyone can make it to Russia in the next couple of days - PAR-TAYYYYY!) then turned me loose.
One of the things I managed to learn about in my extremely limited amount of research leading up to this part of the trip is the smallest statue in St. Petersburg, a little bird called Chizhyk-Pyzhik. I found the story of it charming and decided my first wander out into the great Imperial City would aim to find him.
Chizhik-Pyzhik, where have you been? Drank vodka on the Fontanka. Took a shot, took another - Got dizzy.
The little bird comes from the poem above, which isn't actually about birds, but is rather about law students, who attended the Imperial School of Jurisprudence when it was just across the Fontanka (that would be the river) and used to wear green and yellow uniforms, resembling the bird they were nicknamed for.
I was a little worried about being able to find him...I didn't find really great directions, other than that he was by the First Engineer Bridge. I looked up the bridge and headed in that direction when I left Irina's.
I should have been keeping my eyes peeled, but before I could even realize that I'd made it to the bridge, I saw the Church of the Savior on the Blood in the distance, and in the ensuing excitement to get my camera out I very nearly dropped my wallet into the Fontanka (no, I wasn't drinking vodka, although sometimes I wish I could use being under the influence as an explanation for the stupid things I've done). I'd crossed the bridge and had just had time to think, "Hey, I wonder if this is the river I'm looking for," when I heard a series of clinks, and looked up to see people dropping coins onto the pedestal.
Chizhyk-Pyzhik has only been in situ since 1994 (and not continuously...apparently he's been stolen to melt down several times and now they keep back-up casts on hand). During that time a tradition has arisen that you try to land a coin on the plinth on which Chizhyk-Pyzhik sits for good luck.
Thanks to the fact that Russian coinage annoys the crap out of me (WHY are the sizes so disparate???) I'd managed to accumulate quite a lot of it and was ready to win myself some luck no matter how long it took! Aaaand, then I got it in my third or fourth attempt. That 10 ruble coin on the lower right corner of the picture next door here is mine. Apparently I have good luck coming my way now.
I went onward and wandered into the center, but it was just that - me wandering. I have the next three days to see everything in depth at my own pace. However, I was glad that I got to start the trip on a good note.
(Epilogue: So I was actually falling asleep writing the last couple of paragraphs...jetlag caught up to me around 9 pm. Sorry about the typos, I've fixed them now).
I continue to stand by my previous statement that getting there is NOT half the fun. However, traveling with Engrish does have its charms, and in spite of the decidedly less attractive countryside, I enjoyed this trek a lot more than the one to Khuvsgul in June, largely thanks to her.
For starters, she knows a helluva lot more Mongolian than I do, but she's even better at talking to people in English than I am. As we left our luxury digs (that was sarcasm, there) in Baruun-Urt in search of adventure out on the town, we ran into a Peace Corps volunteer. Pretty much every Peace Corps person I've ever met dresses pretty shabby, and I guess that goes with the territory, but I still thought Heath was just about the cutest thing I've seen all year, so when he invited himself to walk with us (apparently that's what you do when you're one of five English speakers living in a town - well, three times the size of Glenwood) we were happy to oblige him. We did a pretty good circuit of the town, and he invited us to eat pizza with him and his four friends, but we ended up parting ways when we got back to where we met him. At that point, a drunk Mongolian guy decided it was time to practice what little English he knew, and Heath tried to distract him as Engrish and I snuck off.
Sadly, he was not a very good distraction, because the drunk guy kept trying to get our attention, and as a result, Engrish walked into a pole. It made a nice "DONG!" and I would like to say I didn't laugh, but, well, I don't have an evil streak so much as an occasional good streak.
The most interesting parts of the journey I've already told you about. After the aimag museum in Baruun-Urt there wasn't much left to do but roll over all the kilometers between us and UB. We stayed in Khentii's capital the third night, in a ger camp that was actually closed for the season, but Enkhaa can apparently be pretty persuasive when he doesn't want me and Engrish to pay for a separate hotel room for him. As we were driving out of town to it the sun started going down, and even my college drawing teacher, Gosnell, couldn't argue that this was "the big one." I strong-armed Enkhaa into driving up to the ovoo on the top of the hill, with the above result. Sometimes you get lucky and have perfect timing.
The capital used to be called Öndörkhaan, but thanks to Khentii being even more famous as the birthplace of Chinggis Khaan than it is for its bread, it was renamed Chinggis City in his honor. Which seems like a bunch of dung (an excellent way to heat your ger in Sukhbaatar, by the way...) but it's kind of like Istanbul/Constantinople...it's nobody's business but the Turks. Or in this case, the Mongols. At any rate, we stopped by the Chinggis Colossus on our fourth and final day because while Engrish had been there before, after two years here I still hadn't. If I believed in working for free, my TripAdvisor review would go something like this:
Chinggis Colossus
Probably not worth driving two hours out of the city for, but an interesting way of breaking up the drive if you're on your way home. 7,000 tugs seems steep unless you desperately need to drop deuce and couldn't do it at the ger camp the night before due to a bird in the outhouse that just about gave you a heart attack (true story). There's a giant boot inside made from about a billion cowhides, and you know what they say about men with big feet!
In fact, there is a large white statue of an...appendage...in the hills somewhere between the statue and Terelj park, but I'm not sure where. As much as I would love to find it, I've embarrassed Enkhaa enough the two times I made him take us to see the small one in Kharkhorin. One of these days I may have to rent a car and go looking. Hopefully Engrish will be up for a wild goose chase...or perhaps I should say a wild swan chase. As much as I love her, though, I still can't talk anime with her, so it was pointless to compare the blue skies of Mongolia to that of the Seireitei (I've moved on from Fairy Tail to Bleach). I guess that's still what students are for. It's nice to have a job I actually look forward to going back to tomorrow.
So I've got one last post for my trip to Khuvsgul aimag. See, I didn't go directly from Khatgal to the airport. I asked my buddies at Garage 24 to help me arrange to have my driver that morning to take me to a place called Uushigiin Uver. They had no idea what I was talking about, but luckily the driver was in the know.
What is Uushigiin Uver? It's part of Mongolia's long and varied history. People have been living and dying here for thousands of years, and this Bronze Age site is one of the few records of their lives and beliefs.
The driver suggested we leave at 6 a.m., and since my "trusty" Lonely Planet seemed to think it takes 3 hours to get from Khatgal to Murun, I said I would be sure to be up by then - because I sure as HELL wasn't missing my flight! I was a little shocked when we turned off the paved road around seven and could see Murun in the near distance, but I told myself it was all well and good - it just gave me more time to catch up on the interwebs when I got to the airport.
Getting there so early had another advantage. It was pissing rain when I got up that morning, and I made sure to have my raincoat and lens hood handy. However, by the time we got to the site, the rain had let up and there was just enough light to give it a glowy, surreal quality.
I'd heard of deer stones before. There are lots of stone records around Mongolia (including the balbals and petroglyphs that we saw in Bayan-Olgii), but deer stones are a little different. They serve as burial markers, and the deer from which they get their name are the means by which the spirit is meant to make its way to the afterlife. The site at Uushigiin Uver also has some sacrificial altars, and is probably the best collection of the stones in Mongolia (which - according to Lonely Planet - has 500 of the world's 700 stones). There are fourteen here altogether, with the last one having the face of a woman (that apparently birds get a kick out of crapping on). For me, this lonely, ancient place was the highlight of my time in Khuvsgul. I guess it's the artist in me - I've never been much of a history buff, but the fact that people made some kind of tools and carved beautiful things 4000 years ago? When their lives were otherwise so primitive? I can't even imagine living here without heat* come winter, let alone creating beautiful things by hand when all I've got to make them are bronze tools. I can totally admire them for it, though.
*I am talking, of course, about real heat, that comes in a nice piping hot radiator which I don't have to put any effort into, and hell, don't even have to pay for.
