The Met

The Metropolitan Museum is known to be a must see for anyone visiting New York City,

but it's also a great place for people who live here, too.

Especially when the temperatures are well below freezing.

And our noses are about to freeze off. 

If I need to clear my mind, I like to relax in the gallery that houses the Japanese art.

They have pottery from the Jomon Period (approximately 10,500-300 BCE)

and always have some breathtaking folding screen called "byobu."

Some Fun Facts: 

The pottery during this time was made by rolling clay into ropes and the coiling it on top of each other. Actual rope were then pressed into the finished product to give it some designs. This is also the period during which they created haniwa, clay figurines that were often buried with the dead, especially the leaders of the period, who were buried in huge graves called kofun. I find it quite interesting that burial rituals in ancient Japan and ancient Egypt are so similar. I wonder what other cultures have similar rituals.

Ogata Korin is the artist from the Edo Period that belonged to the Rinpa school of art in Japan. Though I do love the irises in this screen below, I especially like his screens that depict rivers. I absolutely love the texture that he puts into the water. 

Have you been to the Met before?

What's your favorite gallery (if you can even choose just one!).