シーボルト·ハウス

philipp franz balthasar von seibold was a german physician who became a doctor for the dutch military. he was the first european to teach western medicine in japan and started a med school there. he also collected japanese plants, maps and other paraphernalia and married a japanese woman.


basically, he was an 1800s japanophile.

he had a house in leiden, which is now a museum called sieboldhuis. we went on sunday, since i'm somewhat of a japanophile myself. although not as much as sieb.


there was a bunch of stuff going on outside the museum.


there was sushi making...


...a calligraphy (shodo) demonstration...


...and an aikido demonstration that never happened :(


there were also lots of things for sale, like sake...


...teapots...


...and books!


the museum itself was pretty cool. it housed his collections of things, like samurai gear...


...coins...


...maps...


...and other random japanese paraphernalia.


this one's called 'the drunken farmer':


and this is an actual picnic basket.


there's a geisha exhibit going on until june.


it had some amazing photos.





in the kyoto dolls exhibit, we stumbled upon a concert.


weirdest. band. ever. the woman on the left switched between guitar and some kind of lute-looking thing, the dude in the middle would play random instruments that made bird sounds and then alternate between soprano and tenor sax, while the whole time the one on the right would blow into that thing, which only produced one sound.

oh, and the house also had this creepy 18th-century cellar...


...with an even creepier door...


...and a mysterious ceiling hook.


i'm just gonna assume it was used as a coat-hanger.

じゃまた,
b.