My
flight from Malta back to Moscow landed Sunday morning. As soon as I
booked it I told Claire and Angela that we definitely had to get
together and see or do something that day, so I didn't waste it doing
nothing at home.
We
didn't sort out where we would go until a couple days before, but
that didn't really matter much to me. Claire chose the Museum of
Oriental Art, which should probably change its name, given the
pejorative meaning of the word oriental. It ought to be called Museum
of Asian Art.
The web page of the museum says it is one of the
largest 'cultural institutions in the world for the preservation,
research, and display of Oriental art.' I'm not sure if I believe it
is really that big, but who knows.
We
found the ticket desk, which wanted us to pay what amounts to a
foreigner tax, meaning a higher entrance fee. We showed our work
visas, and said we live here, we don't want to pay the higher price.
They let us pay the local price, if they hadn't we were ready to walk
away.
The
museum was mostly organized by country/region, with a little bit of
chronology thrown in.
There
were sections for India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, etc... I'm pretty
sure we wandered through every room with exhibits, but I could be
wrong. Finding the entrance of the exhibits themselves wasn't
obvious, we had to walk past the toilet, and up what looked like a
back stairway.
Since
all three of us had lived in Eastern Asia (Claire and Angela in
China, me in Korea,) we had all seen some of the styles of the
exhibits previously. Even so, it was a nice outing, and I'm glad we
visited the museum.
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