B is for...

 

B is for....Buildings

Due to the unfortunate bombings of the Second World War, and to the descructive earthquake of 1923, Tokyo's architecture compromises mostly of modern structures. 

Please enjoy this collection of Clare's Top 10 Best Buildings in Tokyo!!

10. In at number ten is the landmark Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills, which funnily enough is in, Roppongi, the foreigner capital of Tokyo. Roppongi Hills is a slick, 54-floored commercial building, boasting a tv station, museum, and a gazillion restaurants and shops.

9. An unknown (to me) building as viewed from Shimbashi Station. The building is almost paper-thin, and seemingly cuts the sky like a razor blade.

8. Number eight is the Park Hyatt Hotel in Shinjuku. This features a three-tiered roof, and was featured in the Lost in Translation movie (the one with Bill Murray).

7. Tokyo Big Sight in the Daiba area. I think I like it because it reminds me of the flying guard spaceship things in from the Tron movie ^^

6. My friends and I affectionately call it the "Castle Karaoke", which is part of probably the most successful Karaoke bar franchises in Tokyo, with the distinctive blue and red colours. This particular karaoke tower in Shinjuku has a Disney-like castle on the roof, and is very luxurious inside with chandeliers, fancy Itailian style posts and statues. The rooms themselves are adorned with psychadelic UV wall designs.

5. Fuji TV Studios in Daiba. It has a unique shape, and the sphere contains an obser- vation deck.

4. The Asahi Brewery in Asakusa. Asahi is Japan's leading beer company with over 40% of the market share. And believe me, beer is big business in Japan! The left-side tower is supposed to resemble a glass of beer with the frothy head at the top (can you see it??), and the lower-right sculpture is known as the 'Golden Flame'.

3. Asakusa Shrine and Sensoji Temple (the one with the giant red lantern) in Asakusa. The temple was first built in the 1st century, and the shrine survived the WWII bombings, making it an important building in Tokyo, and the site for many festivals.

2. The Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower in Shinjuku is my landmark every time I'm lost in that part of the city. You'll be surprised to hear that it is not a commercial building, nor is it an office space, but in fact a fashion school!

1. And number one is... Tokyo Tower! Well, I confess it's not acutally a building, but rather, as the name suggests, a tower. But it is very dear to Tokyoites, and I can see it lit up at night from the roof of my apartment. Very importantly, it is taller than its twin, the Eiffel Tower, and is the second tallest structure in Japan (superceeded only last month by the under-construction Tokyo Sky Tree).
The red and white colours fit under the International Airspace colour scheme, where those colours give the tower the greatest contrast against the sky for aeroplanes to avoid it. Or so I hear.

In other news.. work and life are proceeding as usual ^^
Noteworthy forthcoming events are:
May 24th: Going for a level check before I start taking lessons as a not-so nearby Japanese school. I'm currently very motivated about studying Japanese!!!!!
June 15th: The new foreign teacher is joining Aeon
June 19th: Simon is leaving the school :(
June 27th: Conducting a British culture lesson for the local Scouts pack
June 27th: Cara and Laura from my school are coming to visit for 10 days!!

Golden Week Part 4

Monday 3rd May: Snowboarding After catching the night bus, I got off the bus at a service station on the highway, and was picked up by Ryuta, Yuki and Simon in the early hours of the morning.
We drove to Marunoma Skii resort in Gunma Prefecture. It was one of the last skii resorts open, and a lot of the snow had melted when we got there :(

So long, snowboarding- until next year!!!!!

Golden Week Part 3

Sunday 2nd May

I took an early local train to Kanazawa, a traditional Samurai town which is a popular tourist destination for the Japanese. At the centre of the city is the huge white Castle, and next to that is the famous garden Kenroku-en, which is considered one of the three most beautiful Japanese gardens. There are three geisha teahouse districts, and a famous market. The city was very big, and having done a lot of mountain climbing the previous day, and due to the fact that it was another scorching day, I was thankful for the city loop bus which only cost 200 yen (£1.20) a trip.

First, I refueled with a Japanese breakfast consisting of miso soup, grilled fish, rice and tea. I had decided to only eat Japanese food for my three day vacation ^^

Myoryuji Temple, also known as Ninja Dera is a ninja-style temple with hidden traps and secret rooms. It was undeniably the coolest place I've ever been to! I joined a tour where we were shown special two-way doors, a well with a secret tunnel to the castle, hidden staircases and a magic self-locking trapdoor. There was also a secret room with only four tatami mats. Four is considered unlucky in Japan, since four is pronunced shi, the same as death. The four-tatami room was actually a suicide room for battle commanders who lost a fight.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take a camera into the temple, since it is a religious place, so this secret staircase picture is one I found online. As you can see from the left picture with me in it, it looks like a simple one or two floored building. At the time of Myoryuji's construction, it was illegal to construct a building taller than two floors. Myoryuji cunningly had four floor concealed. So cool!

As I mentioned before, there are countless temples in Kanazawa. Every dot on the above map is a Temple, and this was just the northen part of the city!

Oyama Shrine is the most famous in the city due to its Dutch-inspired stained glass gate at the entrance (remember you can click to enlarge photos).

Kanazawa Castle was unusual due to its white colour, it looked as though it had been snowed upon, which was impossible in the heat!!

Kenroku-en Gardens

 Left: Turtle Island and Right: The most iconic view in Kanazawa, Kotoji lantern

Higashi Cha-ya (Geisha District)

Many Edo period (17th century) teahouses remain in three Geisha areas in Kanazawa.

 I visited a couple of  Teahouses, and visitors were free to explore.

I was served Macha (fresh Green tea) and a sweet to take a away the bitterness.

Finally to end the day while I waited for my night bus, I made a wish at a shrine I came across.

I was told that when making a wish at a shrine, one claps twice, bows, throws a 5yen coin (~3p), and claps twice again (or something like that, many Japanese seem to do this in different orders)!! Unfortunately, while holding a camera, I didn't make the wish correctly so it probably won't come true!!

Golden Week Part 2

Saturday 1st May

I travelled by night bus to Toyama City, about 300km north of Tokyo. I arrived, with not much sleep, at 6am and met up with a student, Youko. We traveled to Tateyama　立山, a 2.5km high mountain deep in the Japanese Alps. It is home to the famous annual Yuki no Outani, a 15m high snow tunnel!
We took Japan's longest single roped cablecar to reach the top:

 It was pretty cold at the top, so we stopped for some termpura.

 Tateyama is an active volcano, and was spewing Hydrogen Sulphide (rotten egg smell).

Yoko and I in very deep snow!

Toyama prefercture is also famous for its glowing hotaruika firefly squid. Unfortunately we were unable to see any in the sea due to low humidity, but we ate some instead at a local sushi restaurant.

That night, I stayed at an inexpensive hotel (~£35) near Toyama station. It turned out it was their first day of business and everything was brand new!! The staff said that I was lucky to have the chance to walk barefoot on freshly-laid tatami carpet!

Looking sunburnt in my room, and the kitchen area.

Golden Week Part 1

Golden Week (April 29th - May 5th) is a week of national holidays every year. It's one of three weeks off, but the Spring weather means it's the best for travelling in Japan, unlike the sweltering humidity of Obon week in August, and the freezing weather of the New Years vacation.

Thus I had to seize my chance and do as much as possible with the time given, and I wanted to use the opportunity to take many pictures with my new camera ^^

 
Thursday 29th April Xor and I took the Express train West to Chichibu to visit 芝桜の丘 (Shibazakuranooka or Cherry blossom hill). It's a carpet of different colour mossy Phlox Subulata, for the flower-loving readers.

At first, it heaved with rain- not a great start to my vacation- but later, the sky suddenly cleared and the unique pyramid-shaped mountain appeared from behind the mist:

Afterwards, we did some exploring in the local area.