Welcome to Quick Takes, our weekly newsletter for Japan travel news. For this week, a lot of hotel news, foreigner-friendly baseball ticket bookings, Poop museum in Yokohama, exhibitions and more.
- Hotel news: It seems every week we see more hotels opening in Japan. This week is no exception. Washington Hotel opened an R&B (room and breakfast) in Kyoto, a ladies-friendly hotel in Kyoto Sanjo, boutique hotel opening in the middle of Osaka, up-and-coming Kansai hotel chain opening branch in Tokyo, and Oriental Hotel group opening their first Kyushu branch in Fukuoka. Whew, that’s a lot of new hotels.
- Poop Museum in Yokohama?: There are strange museums, and then there are weird museums. And there’s one called Unko Museum in Yokohama, which had opened since March. The topic of the museum is poop. There are sculptures of poop, toilet seats to sit on and take pictures from, and all sorts of modern art pieces in the shape of poop. Take a look at the article here, and see if you are game for visiting it on your next trip.
- Booking baseball tickets through hotel-provided smartphone: Say you wanted to book a ticket to a baseball game during your trip in Japan. But you knew no Japanese, and didn’t know where to get a vendor. What can you do? There is now a simply way to handle this, though it is at testing stage at the moment. Hi Japan, one of the leading rental smart phones providers in Japan hotels, will offer on handset baseball ticket purchase, courtesy of baseball team Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. This test will run from May 7th to 21st, at all hotels in Kyushu that Hi Japan is servicing now. Aside from ticketing, the phones will also provide information about attending baseball matches in Japan for the users.
- Ghibli Exhibition with cafe collaboration: For this week only, there is an exhibition in Tokyo for Spirited Away and Totoro fans. Kanda Shrine is the location for the “Toshio Suzuki and Ghibli Exhibition”, and it will open until May 12th. The exhibition features artwork from pass Ghibli work and exhibits curated by Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki. At the same time, at the EDO Culture Complex inside Kanda Shrine, special goods for the exhibition are available in the gift shop, and the coffee shop inside will offer special food items related to the exhibition.
- Art shows by NAKED crossing over with historical buildings: Creative production company NAKED Inc. has been quite active for the past year. After opening two art shows in Nijo Castle in Kyoto and Mitsui Hall in Tokyo among others, they have two more shows coming up. One is an anniversary show, celebrating 125th anniversary of rebuilt of Dogo Onsen in Matsuyama. It will be a cross over featuring artwork from The Phoenix, a famous manga series from world renowned artist Osamu Tezuka, signifying the reborn of Dogo Onsen in it’s modern form. The other one is to commemorate the restoration of Minamiza in Kyoto, one of the earliest Kabuki theatre in Japan. As Naked is known for their presentation of light art inside historic and modern buildings alike, these two shows must be fascinating to see.
That’s it for this week. Now that the Golden Week is officially over, the streets of Japan should quiet down somewhat. Do you have a trip coming up? Share with us in the comments what you are planning, and let’s get excited for the trip!