Forever a student...

My husband thoroughly surprised me yesterday when he woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed and announced..."I would like to go see the Van Gogh exhibition in Roppongi today". I felt his forehead to make sure he wasn't ill, and then asked him what was so appealing about Van Gogh (one of my least favorite artists, but I am always up for a museum, so I said what the hell)

I decided to question no further, but enjoy the fact that my husband wanted to leave the house, as we haven't in so long, and when we move to the new house, it is likely he will want to just lounge about quite a lot as well...

As we are often slow to move, and we had to mail some parcels as well, we didn't get on the train to head into town until after lunch. The keio line seemed to go a lot faster than I remember, even though I had just ridden it last week. My husband and I researched Van Gogh on the way there, trying to put together the few facts we knew about him into some kind of coherent time line. Nana slept due to the rocking and vibrations of the train....Gaku usually does too, but he seemed more stimulated than usual, which was a pleasant surprise.

Things I learned about Van Gogh that I didn't know before:

1. He may or may not have fathered a child with a prostitute. He tried to raise the child, but the relationship fell apart due to his artist like behavior.

2. He suffered from severe anxiety and depression.

3. He wanted to be a clergyman but failed all the tests (this was absolutely shocking to me)

4. He didn't cut off his whole ear like everyone sort of imagines....he only cut off the lower bit of the lobe and gave it to a prostitute for "safe keeping"....he really liked ladies of ill repute!

5. The actual bedroom from the bedroom painting was quite small...(They set up a replica and talked about perspective, etc)

We spent a good long time at each of the paintings, as it was so crowded it was quite difficult to move. You had to just stand there and stare until the line decided you were done....I had a good time though...

Nanami also had a good time. She commented on each of the paintings (the color, the subject matter, etc) but by the time we got around to the 5th room we could tell she had had enough. She did however, seem to choose a favorite painting. She wanted to go back and look at the "small bed" (the famous bedroom painting). When we finally reached the end of the exhibition, of course they dump you out into a gift shop, so I picked up a cheap copy of the bedroom painting and gave it to her to hold. She dubbed the painting "sleepy bed" after that and held onto it until we got to the place we were having dinner.

We shopped in Shinjuku after Roppongi (I had to pick up a few interesting baby items for a friend in IL) and then headed back to fuchu for a dinner at Itantoko...I love that place.

To top the whole day off, we noticed the patissiere on sakura dori was still open after we finished at Itantoko so we stopped by for some nice cakes and then headed back home to scoff down some yummy goodness and fall asleep after a long day.

I think thats it.

Happy Monday.