Today was exhibition day, the main event of the tour. All 31 of us followed Bjorn onto the train for two stops to the Metropolitan Museum where the exhibition was being held. Waiting for us at the entrance was our old friend Takahiro Mori.
Back when we were living in Las Vegas and running the bonsai club there, he was one of six artists from Japan that was travelling through the U.S. as part of a cultural exchange. He reached out to our club and offered to do a demonstration. He was so kind and so humble it was such a treat to have him walk us through the exhibition. It was interesting to hear his point of view and also to see his client's trees that he had prepared for exhibition and were accepted into the competition.
This display above was one of thirteen he had over Part 1 and 2 of the competition. This was our favorite from Part 1.
There were about 100 large trees displayed on floor number one. Then on floor number two there were another 50 or so medium and small trees. Below is one of the prize winners.
Closeup of the deadwood
Another twisting juniper
Closeup of the deadwood
This one above seemed to defy gravity. While the maple below overpowered and swallowed the rock it was planted on.
After the show we hopped on the loop bus and headed over to the Green Club. The Green Club is where all the vendors of bonsai and bonsai adjacent have booths to sell their wares. It is both inside and outside over 3 floors.
Rows and rows of bonsai and pre-bonsai for sale
The tree below was displayed at the booth of Shinji Suzuki. Some might say he's the current top bonsai artist in Japan at the moment. Bjorn told us this tree is worth somewhere in the six figures. The red tag means it sold. Sheesh!
Also for sale at the Green Club were suiseki, which is the Japanese art of appreciating naturally occurring stones, especially for their ability to evoke landscapes and nature.
This is an example of a stone and the carved wooden stand it sits on or the daiza and an example of a box. The daizas are works of art on their own, hand-carved to perfectly fit the stone, including the bottom which shouldn't be flat cut.
David loves suiseki, so it was fun to go shopping with someone else's money, LOL. He started off slow, buying a couple reasonably priced stones. But then he moved on to the big boys and popped on a stone with a name, "Swordblade". The box it came with had the name of the collector, where it was collected as well as the name of the stone printed in Japanese. It was too much for David to resist. I would have posted a picture of it, but we forget to take one before it got wrapped and boxed up. I'll try to remember to take one when we get back to San Diego.
We caught the second to the last loop bus back to the museum to meet up with the group to take the train back to the hotel. We had a little time to relax and enjoy a beautiful sunset before dinner.
David had made reservations at a steakhouse in Ginza. Thankfully, they had a "Ladies Set" which was a more reasonable amount of food for me. The steak was delicious, by the way.
Stay tuned for more, the tour's not over yet.
A dopo!
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