Sendai Mediatheque

We made it all the way up to Sendai! And have seen the only building worth seeing in this city :) The Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito.

Utsunomiya

'coal house' by Terunobu Fujimori

"house before house' by Sou Fujimoto

the 'sumika pavilion' by toyo ito

house by Taira Nishizawa

This morning we left very early on our one week trip through Central Japan. On our way up to Sendai, we stopped in Utsunomiya. I was super exhausted and not looking forward to the stop, but it ended up being on of the coolest experiences I've had so far in Japan. There we visited the Tokyo Gas Sumika projects. "Tokyo Gas Co. is Japan's largest supplier of natural gas for both residential and business consumption. For their 'Sumika Project', they teamed up with Japanese architects Toyo Ito, Sou Fujimoto, Terunobu Fujimori and Taira Nishizawa. Each of the architects are responsible for designing a built structure on the project site. The concept behind Sumika is to provide new residential units, buildings and a main pavilion that will use gas as their main source of energy."(DesignBoom). The houses were small, but very detail orineted. I could not tell you which one I liked the most, because they were each so unique and special. It was a very inspirational experience.

Lost in Translation

The Park Hyatt

all dolled up!

Wouldn't mind trading our dorm rooms for this!!Crazy Shinjuku

Last night we walked to Shinjuku and met the department head from Cal Poly at the Park Hyatt. This is the hotel that Lost in Translation was filmed at. The views from the restaurant were amazing! We were given a tour of a couple of suites. Very luxurious! Afterward, we walked around the Shinjuku station district and had a beer and some appetizers with our professor and the dept. head.

Sumo!

There is a Sumo tournament going on right now, so a bunch of us went today to check it out. It was a really cool Japanese experience. There is so much ritual to each bout. There is alot of lunging, foot stamping, and salt throwing involved. The bouts last for about 5-10 minutes each, but the actual wrestling is only a few seconds. Each Sumo wrestler has one only one shot per day, so the winning is based on a couple of seconds. They really get tossed around! This one match ended up in the crowd with one wrestler crashing into this unlucky old woman!

Dog Park!!

Since there hasn't been a torrential downpour lately, I've finally had the chance to go into Yoyogi Park which is behind our dorms. It was so much fun! We found the dog park where all the young, hip Tokyo-ites (?) take their dogs and parade them around. They are all pedigrees wearing silly little outfits. I got a real kick out of it. There was the hipster with his neurotic black standard poodle (like Coco!), with his girlfriend with the miniature black poodle. And the naughty French bulldog that jumped up onto the park bench and peed on this woman's Burberry purse. And the ex-patriot with the crazed Jack Russel Terrier named Magic Mu that played an amazing game of soccer. I'm definetly going there everytime I get stressed or feel down. Highlight of my week!

Hakone and Mt. Fuji

Mt Fuji!!

almost blown away by the wind up on the mountain!

stinky hot springs

don't go in there!

look at all of his eggs! haha

lush forests all around beautiful Hakone

Please excuse my lack of blog posts! Tokyo has been very rainy and uninspiring this past week. Fortunately, our dorm was closed for Monday and Tuesday, so we had to find hotels for two nights. Sig, Trudy, and I decided to get out of the city and go to this small town in the mountains called Hakone. What a good call!! Hakone is famous for their hot springs, so we caught up on some much needed R&R. During the day, we set up the mountain to get some views of Mt Fuji. We lucked out! Apparently, you can only see it once every four days or so. We were able to catch it for about half an hour before the fog rolled back in. There were these crazy sulferic hot springs near by, spewing steam and stinky aromas. They boil eggs in the springs which turns them black. Of course, we had to try them! It didn't taste that much different, but they supposedly add seven years to your life :) It was a much needed trip. I eally needed to see some greenery after being stuck in the concrete jungle aka Tokyo.

Harajuku Lovers

tea time!

Audi building

An ape doing calligraphy!

Tod's store

Forever 21 madness

rawr!

oh hai!

ahhh! shopping crazed mob

"Lolitas"

I'm finally in Tokyo!! It is everything I expected it to be: lots of concrete and people!
Yesterday, Sig and I cruised around the Roppongi district and had tea at this fabulous place. The girl at the place prepared macha-a green tea from powder-in front of us. She went through all these steps and ceremony preparing it. Definitely a cool experience!
Today we received our new design assignment (another mixed-use, urban infill project) so we went to the Harajuku district for some inspiration. It was madness. There were so many freaking people there. Like don't people have work or school? It's Monday!! Anyways, a Forever 21 opened up and there had to be a police blockade controling the crowd. We saw some of the cool designer stores too, like Dior, Tods, LV, etc. Some of the girls the walk around Harajuku are beyond outrageous...I don't know how one can maintain these looks! It is like Halloween every day!
Oh, and we saw a pet store with $2,700 kitties, no joke.