An Afternoon in Aoyama

On Saturday I was out in Aoyama, and this time, was accompanied by Yuko. We started out by visiting our friend Nao’s show at Gallery Omotesando, “3+5+6+8,” on the last day it was being held. Following that we went to, ahem, Royal Host, because Yuko was in the mood for a parfait. Hey, if it’s good enough for Tyler Brûlé — I’m referring to a piece that appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES last year in which Brûlé highlighted his favorites things in Japan. One parfait later (strawberry for me, chocolate for Yuko), we walked down Omotesando and had some ramen at the Harajuku branch of the Santouka chain — our goal at first was to go for some gyoza at a shop nearby, but there was a bit of a queue, and walking past Santouka put us in the mood for ramen (hadn’t had a bowl of shio ramen in ages). We then stopped at LAUNE Galerie for “The Art+Commerce Festival of Emerging Photographers” (until March 19), which groups the works of 24 photographers from New York. It was an enjoyable show, and I’m always in awe of the staff there (they walk you to the exhibition room, even though it’s just down the hall). Our final stop in Aoyama that day was at Spiral, where we caught the second part of the “Kougei: Tama Art University Graduation Works ’06” (pictured above), this time covering glass, ceramic, and metal works.