Ginza

The Ginza is, of course, Tokyo's most famous and expensive shopping district. I passed through a few times doing toy and other shopping. The Tokai bank (ahead on the right in the top two pictures, not that you can tell) had a great, free exhibition of Hiroshige's "Fifty-three stages on the Tokaido" series. Prints of most of the fifty-three stages by the ukiyo-e master were displayed!   But mostly the Ginza just has some cool buildings. This Coke building and the screens next to and inside it definitely define the Tokyo experience! More cool buildings. The Sony building, at left, is also a showroom. All of these pictures were taken along the main drag of the Ginza, chuo-dori. One of the destinations in the Ginza: Hakuhinkan Toy Park. This is a great toy store, along with KiddieLand in Harajuku one of the must-visit spots for a trip to Japan. I was very happy when I found what's shown at left: The Parappa the Rapper character goods section! Go Rodney (Greenblatt, the artist who did Parappa)!  This set my Visa card back a bit. Incidentally, on this trip I found Visa cards were very widely accepted in Japan -- something that wasn't true a few years ago (although Hakuhinkan took them even on my previous trip). My friend James took me to the Gallery on the Ginza where a mutual acquaintance bought a couple shin-hanga a couple years ago (Shin-hanga are Japanese woodlblock prints by artists active in the 1920s and 1930s. These artists were among the first Japanese artists trained in western art, and thus in perspective. Some of them rediscovered the art of Japanese woodblock printing and the results are called shin-hanga). Through them, I contacted Gallery Sobi, which is just off of the south end of the Ginza in the Shimbashi area. Here's a (very off-center)picture of the new Yoshida Toshi print I acquired there, Running. I've been collecting prints from the Yoshida family of Japanese woodblock printers for about five years, but this is the first of Toshi's contemporary style prints I've acquired (my other prints are shin-hanga styled prints from either Yoshida Toshi or his father, Yoshida Hiroshi). "Running" © 1975 Yoshida Toshi