If you haven't been to the Getty Center to view the Japanese Lacquer exhibit, I would highly recommend it. The Getty has a small but powerful collection of pieces, most of which were made to be exported to Europeans who competed to have the best collections.
One of the best pieces was the Mazarin Chest, which was owned by a French family originally and has scenes from "The Tale of Genji" depicted on the sides and front. Apparently the traditional lacquered pieces lacked depictions of people, but the Japanese knew that the Europeans liked to have characters/individuals included in the art, so they put them in the scenes. There was another larger piece called the Van Diemen box that was acquired by a Dutch official in the East Indies.
Beyond those major pieces, there were many smaller lacquered boxes that were actually incense containers. They held elements for a game in which people identified different types of incense (called "kodo" -- the way of incense). These tiny boxes adorned with beautiful images in precious metals and perfumed with incense must have been beautiful.
So -- there was actually a group of students on the tram as I made our way up to the center, and I think it would be fantastic to take a group. Especially on a Saturday as they would not have to miss class. The connections between Japan and the Europeans were compelling, and this fit well with the lecture that Dr. Pitelka gave on Tuesday as the materials in the exhibit cited Deshima and the Dutch as well as the expulsion of the Portuguese.
Again, I would highly recommend this exhibit. You can find the link on the Getty website here: http://getty.edu/art/exhibitions/japanese_lacquer/
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