Today was another great day. Last night I stayed up to watch “Frantic” on TV and slept in ridiculously late this morning. For the week or so since it opened, I’ve been meaning to get over to the Ehime Museum of Art to see the traveling “Trésors du Musée Fesch; Collections d’Å“vres italiennes, napoléiennes et impressionistes corses.” I thought I knew exactly where the exhibition was, but first stumbled into a free showing of modern calligraphied Japanese scrolls. (A happy little “I can’t read Japanese” accident.) It was a small show, about the size of the gallery at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, if that helps you. If not, it was a large (~50′ by 30′) room divided into two halves. The scrolls were very artistically painted and displayed, but being almost illiterate in Japanese, the part I found most interesting was the bit at the end where they showed the ink blocks, brushes, stands, and intricate stamps used to make them.
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Between the building I found first and the larger exhibition hall with the exhibit that brought me to the museum, there’s this peaceful little earthy courtyard. (Please excuse my multiple-photo attempt to pretend I have a wide angle lens for my camera.) The main hall is an impressive building, with a large (~45 foot tall) lobby that opens onto the first floor’s space for rotating exhibits and the second floor’s permanent exhibition space, and has enough floor space for two separate gift shops. The show that brought me there had lots of Italian and French paintings, with some sculpture thrown in for good measure. As you’d expect of very old French and Italian pieces, the exhibition was probably 90% religious works of art centered around the birth and death of Jesus Christ. There were a few portraits and busts of cardinals and other rich old white guys, a still life or two, and the remainder was dedicated to Napoleon the 1st and his family. Although I didn’t write down any names, I was really impressed by the use of light in some of the paintings, and amazed at the skill used to blend tones to the perfect shade to give the illusion of active light and falling shadow.
Tickets to the rotating exhibit also include access to the permanent exhibit, but I didn’t find it as impressive. It included about as many Japanese scrolls as the first exhibit I saw, but at least this time the placards next to most included printed versions of the text on the scroll, and a few even had brief English translations. Other than the scrolls, they had paintings by Ehime artists and a smattering of modern and classic Japanese sculpture. It was all certainly better than anything I could do, but didn’t really wow me.
(On the left is is a picture I stole from Wikitravel.org of the actual French mansion in Matsuyama, not the model.)
They also had a room with posters of the touring exhibits the museum had hosted, and in the middle of that room were two models. One was of Bansuiso, an anachronistically French romantic-style mansion built in Matsuyama in 1922, and the other was an architectural model of the museum complex itself. I probably wasn’t supposed to take pictures but I figured no one would tackle me, as I was just shooting a model of the museum and not the art on the walls. Anyway, there was no docent in this room to stop me, so on the right is the picture of the model of the museum.
Before I moved to Japan, I thought they only had Japanese toilets in high-traffic public areas, with Western-style toilets everywhere else, but I soon found out that most restrooms have one or two of each type. Please don’t think me weird(er than you already do), but I took a picture to surprise my pre-Japan self. Here’s a snapshot of a very classy bathroom stall in the museum, replete with Japanese-style toilet.
After I left the exhibit halls, I wandered through the gift shops, then hit the museum cafe for a nice lunch of cold soba noodles and tempura. Feeling artistic (and glad I brought my camera for once, even though it was threatening rain), I took a few snapshots that I think came out pretty well.
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 Here’s a uniquely framed angle of Matsuyama castle. The art museum is built on part of the extended castle grounds inside the moat at the base of the hill crowned by the castle. |
| You can get a sense of the architectural style of the museum from this shot (mid 1970s?). |  |
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On my way home, I stopped to do a little grocery shopping, and took a couple of pictures I’ve been meaning to take. Here’s a mailbox just down the street from my place, still in active service even though it looks like it was plucked from the 1920s. Across the street from the mailbox is some random blue car. Yes, this beast lives within crawling distance of my apartment, and it brightens my day whenever I pass it. |
| Just a little further away is this seemingly unmodified STi. I feel bad for the car; I’ve never seen it not parked there, and there’s always rust on the brake rotors, which tells me it’s driven rarely, if ever. It’s a sin to let such a fine automobile rot and rust. :-/ |  |
I felt positively provincial riding home with my bicycle’s basket full of groceries, especially with a large baguette poking out the top. So of course, I had to take a picture. If I had to name my bicycle, it would be “Rusty.” From this angle you can see the empty enclosure where Rusty’s headlight used to be, my umbrella tucked under the seat, and the collectors’ edition rust-based patina Rusty is developing. I think I’m going to rewrite Adam Sandler’s “Ode to My Car” for my bicycle one of these days. When I do, you’ll be the first to hear about it.
So that was my day. I came home and watched the US women’s volleyball team beat Japan’s in a very close game, then watched Raiders of the Lost Ark on TV while writing this (lots of Harrison Ford movies on TV for the leadup to the release of Crystal Skull). Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some sleep so I can wake up for my Japanese lesson in the morning.