A few pictures from the week of travel

Himeji

Sendai

House of Light


Matsudai
Kanazawa



Gokayama

whalers of the moon

so...I haven't posted a blog for a while. I have been quite behind schedule. On the plus side, Zach and I are almost finished with our design project, and I'm not too far from finishing my other stuff for the quarter. Today, after working all afternoon, we went to see Star Trek in the theater in Shinjuku. It was definitely an awesome movie. After that we went to Shibuya and went to a restaurant that serves whale. We had several different dishes including smoked whale and whale tongue cooked with soy sauce. The best though was the raw whale heart. You can really taste the strength in the flesh of an enemy's heart. Once I get the pictures from Zach, I will post them to the blog.

Sendai

Today, we headed up to Sendai. On the way we stopped at the Sumika Projects. My favorite by far was the house by Taira Nishizawa. His design is a thick, rectangular roof floating on thin round pilings. Because the columns are sunk about 20 feet into the ground, no lateral bracing is needed, and a conventional foundation isnt neccessary. The thick roof is a layered ordeal starting with an outer of corrugated plastic, then structure, then heavier structure, then the lightest structure, then vertical fins that mediate the light even more. In the top layer, there are several large voids, which are glazed, but allow unfiltered light into the space. These voids allow light to move from the bathroom to the bedroom then to the kitchen and living spaces throughout the day. The building has radiant heat in the floor, and during the summer well water is run through the pipes to cool the floor. The entire building can be opened up. It is awesome. We also saw the three other projects which were definitely cool. At Sendai we saw an Abe building, then the mediateque. The mediateque was obviously awesome, but hard to photograph because the area is so dense. We looked for and eventually found the Abe restaurant with the perforated steel interior, but it was closed. Apparently its less of a restaurant and more of a private club type place as we were told it is rarely open and usually only by reservation. Unfortunately it was too dark to even take pictures of. Photos of the mediateque and other Sumika Projects to follow at a later date.

Farewell to Tokyo...for a week

Tomorrow morning(monday) we leave for Sendai. On the way we are stopping to see a set of four buildings designed by four of the top designers in the area. They were commissioned by a gas company if i remember correctly. After that we continue on the train up to Sendai to check out the Sendai Mediateque as well as a handful of Hitoshi Abe projects. After that we continue travelling until Sunday night although I don't recall where to right now. Hopefully blogs will continue but I can't promise anything.

Sumo

Sumo was pretty cool. Obviously, the wrestlers were huge. They were insanely powerful and on several occasions people in the crowd were landed on by one or two wrestlers flying out of the ring.

The Presentation of the Stable. The throwing of the salt.

Yokohama

We had monday and tuesday off because we had to be out of the youth center for those days. Don gave us a hotel budget and helped us make reservations for the couple nights we had to be gone. Wanting to make the most of it, we went to Yokohama. It is only a little bit from Tokyo on the JR. Pasmo worked there too, which was awesome. We decided to stay in a capsule hotel since they don't really exist outside of Japan. Don found one online called the SKYspa. It is located on the 14th and 15th floors of a department store building right next to the Yokohama station. If you want to see pictures, you have to go to the website, since you can't really take photos there.

http://www.skyspa.co.jp/

The hotel has a spa with about 5 different baths and a few different saunas. I spent a good portion of my time there, as the tubs and saunas looked out onto the cityscape below, and were perfect for relaxing. The capsules themselves were surprisingly large, and had tv and radio inside. Unfortunately, the front screen that could be closed to block light and views did not block sound, and there were a few bears in there snoring it up at night. We went to the Yokohama terminal, and it was leagues better than last time in the typhoon. The building really is amazing, and despite the angular nature of the project, the craft is practically flawless. We also saw some projects by a guy that we will get to meet later on the trip, and a housing project that was enormous. The housing project had some courtyard type spaces that looked like hangars from star wars. Although it didn't seem like a very nice place to live, it was cool to see just for the scale and intensity of it. As with the Kyoto International Conference Center, which we saw in Northern Kyoto, it is amazing to see a project like this actually built, which seems to have happened in Japan a lot more than anywhere else. We saw a gymnasium and a small university campus by Maki. We ate some good Chinese food in the Chinatown and had some good conveyor belt sushi under our hotel.

Tokyo

I am in Tokyo. For the first few days we are staying in yet another Toyoko Inn. Unfortunately, my room looks directly into another room, and offers no ventilation. I feel like I am cooking in here especially with my computer. The room is small, like all Toyoko Inn rooms, but offers plenty of room considering it is just me in here. On tuesday we move to the olympic housing building where we will be staing for the duration of Tokyo. We walked around and saw the buildings I saw last time like Prada, Tod's, Louis Vuitton, and the Audi tower. We also walked to the Olympic stadium by Kenzo Tange. It was awesome. There was a Namie Amuro concert there and we tried to get in but it was sold out. I hope I can get tickets for Ayumi next weekend. Today we went to the Kyoto Forum building. It was also pretty cool. I have had some wonderful ramen here. One place has broth as thick as a thinner turkey gravy. It was pretty good, but my favorite in Tokyo thus far has to be the place with the garlic cloves on the tables. The ramen is already good, with a nice tea boiled egg and a big piece of fatty pork on top. Then you grab the garlic crusher and as many cloves of garlic as you want and pump it into the ramen. The first time I just used one clove, then decided that the next time I would double it. The next time I used 2, but next time I plan to use 4. I hope a stormdrain isn't in my near future after 4 cloves, but it's a risk I'm willing to take for awesome ramen. Earlier, we ate at a revolving sushi place where you sit around the bar and plate after plate of sushi goes around the conveyor belt. I had about ten plates or twenty pieces of sushi. It ended up being only about 12 bucks. Not a bad meal at all. About 6 pieces of hamachi and salmon. mmmm. Pictures to come after I catch up on my travel journal...

Himeji

Himeji was pretty cool. It is home to one of the castles that didn't get burnt down during the bombings of Japan. It was definitely built to be defended, with weapons racks claiming any wall space not used for arrow slits. The plaster of the castle was well stained, and offered a wonderful texture of age and use. After seeing the castle, we ventured over to the city museum of literature which was composed of two buildings by Tadao Ando. Again, as with many Ando projects, circulation was abundant and powerful. The buildings weren't his greatest works but were interesting. We also saw a Shuhei Endo project. It was a small office building, and apparently not one of his more famous works. It was a very cool building. At about 6 we boarded a shinkansen for Kyoto, where we had an hour to pack our stuff and get back on another shinkansen for Tokyo. The hour was actually plenty of time, even considering that I had to break down my bike and pack it as well as repacking my other bags.