Getting artsy.

Welcome to the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art!

The Kanto region has apparently entered rainy season...but we were still lucky to get (partially) beautiful, clear weather on Sunday!

Tickets to the current Flowerscapes exhibition.

I had previously visited the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art (DIC川村記念美術館) for work, and got tickets through that. Obviously with work, you can't quite enjoy things at your own pace, so I roped a friend into coming with me (thank you!).

Restaurant and gallery.

Tucked away in the woods of Sakura City in Chiba, this place is absolutely gorgeous! It was only about a 30 minute drive from Chiba City, but it's like the perfect hideaway. This particular building houses the museums restaurant (amazing!), one of the gift shops, and a couple of galleries where local organizations can run their own mini exhibitions.

Adorable sign boards at the restaurant!

Before actually heading into the museum, we popped into the museum restaurant, Belvedere, for lunch. It's a bit pricey, but it's lovely, has a gorgeous food, and the food is fantastic! I didn't actually get to try any of the items above (except for the dessert plate), but the drinks look particularly awesome. Someday...

Anyway, we got the lunch A set, which comes with salad, a main dish, dessert, and coffee/tea for 1,600 yen.

Italian ham and asparagus cream sauce spaghetti. Simple but genius.

Dessert plate: mango mousse, rare cheese thing, and some sort of cake with apple in it? All super delicious.

After lunch, we also took a short stroll down the nature trail:

Almost hydrangea season!

The nature trail has all sorts of seasonal flowers and plants, and it's also maintained to perfection, so it seems like a lot of people come here just to chill, even if they aren't going to the museum itself.

I really like this tiny stream so it's the only thing I actually took a photo of, but there's also a giant field where you can have picnics, tennis courts, baseball field, etc. connected to the nature trail! All open to the public. This place is gorgeous!!

From the nature trail - the museum peeking out behind the trees!

They've got all sorts of ducks and geese running around...so adorable! <3

So photogenic.

Giant sculpture of a mass of awesomeness.

Entrance to the museum building.

Finally, it was time to actually check out the museum itself! Kawamura has a reaaaaally impressive collection. I think we spent 2-3 hours looking around?? A couple of my favorites were "The Pop Garden" in the Flowerscapes exhibition, and Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals in the Museum Collection.

Info board next to the entrance.

The museum is generally open everyday from 9:30-17:00 (last admission at 16:30) except for Mondays (unless Monday is a holiday, in which the museum is then closed on the following day) and the Japanese New Year holidays. Cost of admission varies according to the current exhibit. This time around, admission for adults was 1,200 yen.

The Kawamura Museum is potentially a new favorite spot of mine - can't wait to go again!

There are so many parts that I couldn't actually get into within the museum itself, since I don't have photos (no photography allowed inside of course), so you will just have to see for yourself! In the meantime, their website is very well maintained so you can get a good overview of what the museum offers before actually going: http://kawamura-museum.dic.co.jp/en/index.html

Yay for artsiness!