In Toyama city there is a unique and modern library building. This building houses the Toyama Glass Museum, which features work from local glass artists and the infamous Dale Chihuly. Chihuly has exhibitions all over the world and, rather surprisingly, also in Toyama!

So on one of our colder and less ‘outside’ winter holiday days we decided to visit the infamous museum. It was a reasonably good choice as outside of the main space and inside the glass exhibition areas we were the only paying customers! A private museum. Most people were there to visit the Ghibli exhibit, but as we can do this in Tokyo (and haven’t yet) we gave it a miss…

The glass exhibits are beautifully lit and feature in unique peaceful spaces. However, there are an unexpected amount of women sat around the room wearing black, some sort of security guards who appear to be in deep meditative states. This was a little unnerving at first, with about one every three metres or so! However, once you get over that and avoid eye contact at all costs you can start to enjoy the artwork, and it really was rather beautiful.

My favourite piece were the large glass globes in and washed-up distressed wood boat. I really liked the contrast between the old wood and sparkling glass and it was lit to perfection, making you feel like you were alone with the art (which I almost was…). It took me away on a journey into each glass globes, as I thought about what each reminded me of. Some were of the world, some of space, and others of vomit. Very mixed.

Overall it was well worth a few hours and gave us a unique experience on our very low key and chilled out winter holiday.