Month: October 2017

Exhibition of urban guerrilla, Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando is one of world famous Japanese architects. However do you know how he got his own style of architecture?

Tadao Ando, born in Osaka Japan in 1941, at first became a professional boxer when he was a high school student. At the same time he learnt architecture on his own. When he was at 24 years old, he traveled many countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and America. And on one day during such a travel,  he reached to an idea that a life is to fight and to stick to the value he believe in. After returning to Japan, he started his career as an architect and as an “urban guerrilla”.

Roppongi is an area of Tokyo where there is one of buildings designed by Tadao Ando. 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT (a photo below) designed by Tadao Ando was built in 2007 as a facility specialized for design.

His design is well known as exposed concrete and frequent use of geometrical patterns. In this 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT big triangle eaves well show his features.

Now in the National Art Center in Roppongi Tokyo they have an exhibition of architectures by Tadao Ando. It shows a lot of drawings, models and other resources of his architectures. But the highlight of the exhibition is that they reproduced his masterpiece, Church of the Light in a site of the museum.

Church of the Light was built in Osaka, Japan as a Christian church in 1989. Although it’s a very simple design, we cannot forget it once we see the cross expressed by its slit window at the bottom of the building. It also well features Ando’s peculiar design of exposed concrete.

Now there are architectures designed by Tadao Ando not only in Japan but also all over the world. And our second home, Texas also has one. In Fort Worth TX, there is Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth as a museum with a lot of masterpieces of American modern art in the 20th century. The exposed concrete of geometric Y shape designed by Ando perfectly matches with water in inner court and create a home of  these masterpieces.

Indeed there are a lot of architectures designed by Tadao Ando in Japan. When you see a building of exposed concrete, it might be another masterpiece of him.

Several styles of Soba noodle in Tokyo

In this blog, I have once written that Soba, Japanese traditiontal noodle made from buckwheat flour, was a fast food in Edo era (17th to mid 19th century) in Japan.

http://howdyjapan.com/2016/05/11/soba-japanese-fast-food/

However, it doesn’t mean soba noodle is just a simple food without any sophistication. In the contrary in Tokyo in Edo era many master chefs of soba noodle had been making continuous efforts to cook the better soba and such efforts reached to 3 different cooking styles of soba noodle. Now in Tokyo, there are still some soba noodle restaurants which keep each traditional style.

Minowa is an area in northern Tokyo where traditional shopping street are still well used by local people. And at a corner of the street there is a soba noodle restraurant Sunaba-Souhonke whose building was built in 1912.

Sunaba is one of 3 styles of cooking soba noodle in Tokyo (the others are Sarashina and Yabu). And it is said that Sunaba is the oldest style stemming from the location in Osaka to build Osaka castle for a famous Shogun Hideyoshi Toyotomi in the 16th century. Once we enter the restaurant, we can feel such tradition even from the interior of the restaurant.

In each traditional soba styles, chefs make soba noodle from buckwheat flour manually. And each process to cook soba noodle is slightly different among each styles. But in common soba noodle in Tokyo styles are known as long length of each noodle and crisp feeling on month.

Traditionally people in Tokyo have been enjoying sucking in such crisp soba noodle making a big noise. Differently from Western culture, it’s never rude to make a noise but an appropriate way to enjoy feeling the noodle into mouth and down throat.

To be honest, I as a person from a country side of Japan like Inaka Soba (country style soba noodle) better, which has a feature of more chewy mouth feeling and stronger flavor of buckwheat. But when I see local people in Tokyo eating Tokyo traditional soba making a big noise, I would feel a sense of “Iki” (sense of sophistication in old Tokyo).

When you have time, you can enjoy not only soba noodle but also Tempura. In the centuries, Tempura has been considered as one of the best matches with soba noodle.  It’s also cool to drink Sake little by little while eating soba noodle and tempura.

When you think to eat some traditional food in Tokyo, why don’t you consider soba noodle as an option. Although it looks simple, it has a long tradition for chefs as well as people to eat it.

Colored grasses in Oku Nikko

When you visit Japan in autumn, you might expect leaves colored in yellow or red such as maples. And you could end up with becoming very tired of too crowed places. But what becomes colored in autumn in Japan is not only leaves. In Oku Nikko, Tochigi prefecture, Japan, in early October you can enjoy another color of Japan.

Nikko is one of the most famous sightseeing places in Eastern Japan. The highlight of Nikko is a magnificent Nikko Toshogu shrine dedicated to Ieyasu Tokugawa, the first shogun of Tokugawa shogunate.

The day trip in Nikko may finish after visiting several temples and shrines around Toshogu shrine, or Kegon waterfall at most. However, if you keep going further, you will arrive the area called Oku (deep in Japanese) Nikko which has another attraction less familiar to the visitors.

The highest season of colored leaves in Nikko is Mid to Late October. However, in Senjogahara Marshland in Oku Nikko it starts coloring a little earlier.

Senjogahara means a battlefield in Japanese. But it’s not related to a bloody real battle but stems from a mystical battle of mountain gods. Now in the 21st century it’s covered with grasses such as cotton grasses and Japanese pampas grasses. So that visitors can enjoy their colors wooden trails are well equipped all over the marshland.

South to Seojogahara Marshland there is another marshland, Odashirogahara. In this place where you can go only by walk or by a special bus, grasses are more vividly colored.

After you enjoy colored grasses in Oku Nikko, you can also enjoy hot springs in hotels located around Yunoko lake. The water in the hot springs in the area contains much sulfur and colored in green. This component flew into Yuknoko lake and colors the lake green as well.

In Japan there are many places where you can enjoy colored leaves in autumn. But I want to recommend Oku Nikko as a place less crowed in early October and as a rare place where you can enjoy colored grasses.