I found this amazing book today containing the works of Tetsuya Ishida. He painted over 180 pieces with a surreal (and quite depressing) view of day to day life in Japan. Unfortunately he died a couple years ago at age 31. I did some digging online, and a few sources said he jumped in front of a train.
Tokyo seems obsessed with megaplexes; huge mini-cities within a city. Today was the grand opening of Tokyo Midtown, making it the 3rd megaplex in the area. The place was pretty swanky, especially the seemingly perfect park. For you videogame lovers, Konami (makers of Contra) is found here.
Darwin and I checked out Pecha Kucha at Super-Deluxe in Tokyo. Basically its a chance for designers to talk about their work. The catch is they have to present their project in 6 minutes and 40 seconds using 20 slides.
We only stayed for about half of the presentations due to half of them being presented in Japanese and the fact that 6 minutes and 40 seconds feels like a long time if you’re totally uninterested in the project.
We created this snobby rating system to keep us entertained:
5 – I am inspired
4 – I’d buy it if it were for sale
3 – Filler
2 – What are you doing presenting here?
1 – What are you doing as a designer?
There was some really good stuff shown, and we actually found one of the student’s work more interesting than a few of the industry vets. No 1 and 5s were given.
Pecha Kucha started in Tokyo and has now spread to over forty cities. In general I think its a good idea and you should give it a chance in your city if its available. It seems like a great networking event and would probably be most enjoyable if you stand far enough back from the presenter so that you can chat during boring presentations.
Cherry blossom activity seem to have exploded over the past few days. Unfortunately its over in about a week.
Tokyo Tower is a pretty significant landmark, so one has to wonder why they casted this guy as it’s mascot:
Here’s their bio from the pamphlet (yes, there are two of them):
Age: 10 years (male twins)
Character: Older brother (wearing blue overalls), a shy boy, cool and silent
Younger brother (wearing red overalls), cheerful and lively, but often feels lonely and misses people
Hobby: Meeting people, sunbathing
Special Ability: Posing for photos, parrying questions, and shaking hands
Wish: Being liked by children, and receiving lots of chocolate bars from kids on St. Valentine’s day
Goal: To become stars
Motto: Older brother: “Look at things with a hot heart with the cool touch”
Younger brother: “Start with small things and keep going on steady”
The day we arrived in Hiroshima, it was quite gloomy. The city is surrounded by mountains and water, and it actually reminded me of bit of Hawaii. A large part of our time was spent at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Within the park were various monuments and the Peace Memorial Museum. I have to say that I found the museum quite hard to walk through as it contained stories, pictures and belongings of many that lived and died after the bomb.
The following day was sunny and bright and we took a ferry ride along the water. The place had such a different vibe with musicians and festivities taking place throughout the park. Hiroshima left a strong impression and I want to come back here again in the future.
Hiroshima Pictures:
1+2. The Peace Flame will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed
3. Memorial Cenotaph contains the names of all those that were killed by the bomb
4. Memorial Cenotaph
5+6. Statue of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who died from radiation from the bomb. She believed that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes she would be cured.
7. Waterways
8. A-bomb Dome
9. Ferry ride on the waterway
10. View of the city from our hotel
11+12. Peace Gates containing the word “peace” in forty-eight languages from around the world
Somehow I had a completely different picture of the bullet train. I imagined a carnival experience, but it didn’t appear to be faster than some of the city trains. 2 hours later we were in Kyoto.
Kyoto’s spacey train station photos:
I want to start this off by talking about our hotel. We got up to the front desk and Thomas handed them his notebook with the reservation info on it. The guy at the desk let out a laugh and asked his co-worker to help read it. After deciphering it, the guy closed the notebook and let out another laugh when he saw the cover. I think he was slightly embarrassed for laughing, but I don’t blame him when being handed something like this:
Our room itself was large, but the bathroom was about 4’x6’ with the sink hanging over the bath. There was also step to go into the bathroom so it was elevated, yet the ceiling was lower than the rest of the room. I’ll go ahead and say it… the place was a dive. At least there was a Starbucks attached to the lobby.
On our first day we walked around the west side of Kyoto. The city turned out to be a lot larger than the map led us to believe. What looks like a block on the map turned out to have several streets in between. To be honest, I imagined Kyoto to be a bit more old school, but it reminded me of Chicago.
Near the center of the city was Nijo Castle. The area was quite large with a moat and several gardens. An interesting thing about the castle design is that the floors made a chirping sound when walked on. The guide said it was used as a security device so that no one could sneak through the corridors.
Nijo Castle photos:
We were hoping to see the Golden Palace which was located at the edge of the city, but by the time we were in the area, it started to rain and we figured it was closed. We jumped on a bus (our first bus ride in Japan) that turned out to be a huge mistake. It practically circled the whole city and stopped at every bus stop that had lines of people.
Day 2 we explored Kyoto’s eastside and went on the “The Walk of Philosophy”, a path along a canal that connects several temples. Getting there took some effort, but it was definitely worth it.
Silver Pavilion photos:
More photos from the Walk of Philosophy:
We bought a one way ticket for Kyoto leaving tomorrow morning. We wanted to get the 7 day unlimited pass, but oddly enough it can only be purchased outside of Japan. How convenient. We’ll either be back in a few days, or sometime next week.
On the weekends in Akihabara “musicians” come out to perform for the masses. Its definitely a strange scene. The Akiba neighborhood is generally known for its otaku (geek in English) who enjoy video games, anime etc. Near the main train station, performers can claim their space and hope to draw attention from the crowds milling about. Darwin took some footage of the following performers:
1) A girl performing Madonna’s “Like A Virgin”. We found the plethora of video cameras and the niche audience this performer has carved out quite amusing.
2) Girls that play real instruments! It was nice to see these two playing guitars rather than doing the standard karioke thing that most performers did.
3+4) Otaku gents showing off their moves. I found it oddly hypnotic and I was impressed how in sync the dance moves turned out to be.
5) My favorite performance. I doubt this is an original song but I love that nu-wave NRG style J-Pop. If my band can cover this, we will!
