Japan Day 47: Art and Shiseido

Today, we visited the Setagaya Art Museum, which was holding a special exhibition on "Western Artists and the Allure of Japan" from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, one of my favorite art museums! The main work on display was "La Japonaise" by Monet, which has recently been restored, so the color of the painting is more vibrant. The museum was not too big, but I found it to be full of beautiful works. My favorites included pieces by Utagawa Kunisada and other ukiyo-e woodblock prints, which have a distinctive Japanese style. I was unable to take photos in the museum, but I got the chance to visit the museum library, which was full of great titles. 

In the afternoon, we received a company tour of the Shiseido buildings in Ginza, a high end district of Tokyo! All of the employees that guided us were very accommodating, and a senior representative gave us an opening speech about Shiseido's brand and company culture of "Omotenashi," a term used to describe customer service that anticipates the needs of the customer. We first visited its headquarters building, and then went on to the Ginza store and the Shiseido Parlour (which has Michelin-star rated restaurants)! One fun fact about Shiseido is that it actually started as Japan's first western-style pharmacy, and was also the first to serve ice cream floats in the country! We tried these ice cream floats, and the company was generous enough to gift us with pudding and oil blotting paper as we parted!