Shibuya and Rappongi, Week 3

Saturday was my first proper trip to Tokyo, and I decided to make it a 'Design Tour', however Tokyo is gigantic, so even the design tour will have to be staged over a few days, never mind the tourist stuff. As a result, this blog post may be a bit dry for those expecting exciting sunsets and pictures of shrines.

Friday, Ofuna

Friday was my first opportunity to have drinks and food with my colleagues. We went to an Isakaya - a traditional Japanese gastropub - where the main food on offer is raw fish. Unlike sushi, it comes as a bowl of assorted types mainly without rice; Yellowfin, Tuna, Mackerel ect. and the eaters take their selection as they please. The fish in Japan is delicious, lovely and soft, not too 'fishy'. 

A non fish highlight is the beef, I had both beef on it's own and as a sushi piece, it comes barely cooked and is much more intwined with interior fat leaving it soft but not with the chewy edges that some people leave out. We also sampled cheap, average, and expensive Sake, so I could learn the difference. The more you pay the purer and less 'ricey' it tastes, and it begins to take on a slightly liquorice flavour - so there you go.

Saturday, Shibuya to Rappongi

Most of the first half of my Saturday in Tokyo was spent walking. I walked from Shibuya, the place famous for the busy crossing, to Rappongi, a district with a high concentration of galleries and other designy stuff. The streets out of Shibuya seemed very trendy, they were the home of high-end walking stores and 'functional' fashion destinations like Ralph Lauren Denim ect.

What's surprising about the built environment in Tokyo is it's total lack of historical precedent. I touched on this last week - the cramped space is filled with a variety of different ages and styles of building - but in the trendy neighbourhoods, signature statement architecture - the kind that you would find only one of in an entire english town - is the rule rather than the exception.

I went past the site of where the 2020 Olympic Stadium is being built too.

Rappongi - Tokyo National Art Center

I entered Rappongi and my first destination was the Tokyo National Art Center. Famous as a piece of architecture as well as a gallery.

I went to see the Salvador Dali exhibition that was on, and it was very busy, but also fantastic. The displays told a real good story, there was mixed media, not just his paintings, which showed his burst into pop culture and the collection of art on display was both beautiful and entertaining in a way that is uncommon in 'high art'. I might do a post just on Dali.

21_21 Design Sight

Design Sight is a Design Gallery, co-directed by a personal hero of mine, product designer Naoto Fukasawa. The Building itself is certainly a significant piece of architecture, very unobtrusive for a two storey building, but with a significant twist of Tadao Ando brutalism.

There was an exceptional queue to get in, and the exhibition was not actually all I was expecting. It was meant to be a 'dissection' of commonplace Japanese products, but 90% of the display was about Meiji food products.

But despite some comical large versions of the products, the displays were quite boring, and too much of each display was solely on the graphic design, or packaging regulations, despite there being a lot which could have been said about the taste of the products or how they are made industrially.

The Japanese seemed more delighted displays, but I guess to them these are common, familiar products, and so they have more meaning.

There were some cute machines however.

Toto Gallery MA - Torafu Architects Inside Out

An exhibition in the Gallery MA brought the day around to a good end however. By Torafu Architects, the exhibit showed a collection of their work at various scales, as they work designing products and buildings.

The display also featured a small train moving around between the objects, and a video upstairs showed the exhibition from the trains line of sight, allowing you to see the model architecture from a different scale.

Although more whimsically displayed than the architecture and design I usually admire, I could appreciate that had an honest fun element, and a lack of egotism that usually brings down most postmodern design. It was certainly a lot less boring that 21_21 Design Sight.

Sunday, Isakaya Round Two

On Sunday we were kindly invited to another session in a different Isakaya, this time by our host, and manager of our Dorm.

As well as the raw fish I had had on friday, there was (suprise!) cooked fish as well, this time among the selection was the head of a fish.

Which was nice, I also found a 'weird' food (like any of this is normal) that I actually properly like. Eel, served as a piece of sushi, is deliciously soft and melts in the mouth.

So that's a collection of this weeks thoughts and experiences, I'll be back soon with more travel updates, and perhaps i'll do some 'boring' posts on design too, so watch out!

Fujisawa, Kamakura & Yokohama, Week 2

Fujisawa - Food & Drink

The working week finished on Friday with a few quiet drinks. Our first stop was 'Mokichi Craft Beer', a hip bar in the centre of Fujisawa, supplied by the local Shonan Brewery. I tried first their 'English style Real Ale', an amber ale that was surprisingly good and surprisingly accurate. Then I had a large glass of the 'Schwartz', an imperial stout that was also lovely.

However we moved on fairly quickly, we were paying about ¥700 per beer (£5). We moved on to a spot where we had some more drinks and sampled some Yakatori - Japanese skewered meat. Among the selections available were Chicken cartilage, Beef artery and several types of octopus/squid. The options were interesting and entertaining, but safe to say the more common options like chicken thigh or anything heavily deep fried still turned out to be the most tasty.

We also sampled an interesting liquid speciality, 'Hoppy' beer (that's the brand), which comes in at 2%, served with ice and mixed with Sake. That, combined with a few more Asahi, and some generously donated cartoned Sake from the dorm manager when we got home, meant that Saturday got off to a slow start.

Kamakura

Saturday, unfortunately did not offer the same high weather standards that I experienced last week, but after a light bite in Fujisawa, I decided to nip to Kamakura on the old electric line.

Kamakura is famous as the former de facto capital of Japan during the Kamakura Period which ran from 1185–1333. It is the home several Shinto Shrines and Buddhist Temples, and is the home of the of the 'Big Buddha'. Sadly due to lack of preparation and being in a rush, I failed to prepare properly so I ended up at the central Shrine, Tsurugaoka Hachimangū, and not where the Buddha was.

Tsurugaoka Hachimangū was set in lovely scenery though, the first sight at the entrance torii is three bridges, the central one fenced off. This was traditionally reserved for the shogun who's seat would have been in Kamakura. 

The shrine was situated amongst some grand landscaping, including a grand straight path. I was lucky enough to witness a traditional Japanese wedding, which was held in the open in the oratory at the foot of the main shrine. 

These shinto shrines have some magnificent wooden architecture, and fantastic history (this one was the scene of the murder of Shogun Minamoto no Sanetomo in 1219). 

I'm still not sure what I'm doing when I'm going to them though, the locals often wash, line up, bow and clap at the doors of the shrine (no one ever goes in). I'm going to be coming back to Kamakura when i've got a full day, and maybe i'll arrange a tour or something at one of the many religious destinations in this small city.

Yokohama

Sunday begins with a trip to Yokohama, Yokohama is Japan's second biggest city, but is only about 30km from Tokyo itself, and therefore forms a major part of the massive 38 million population Greater Tokyo Area. A walk into Yokohama from a short bit out (we got off at the wrong stop) is an interesting look at urban life in Japan.

This isn't some harrowing story about the haves vs the have-nots, as it would be more vividly in other cities, but rather just the contrast between the bumble and disorder of the traditional streets vs the towering, clinical business district in the distance.

The primary reason for the disorder of the traditional streets is something I think is pretty deeply embedded in Japanese culture - the transient nature in which they treat their natural and built environment. There is a famous shrine in Japan, the Ise Jingu that is quite famous because it gets rebuilt every 20 years on an adjacent plot. The story is similar with domestic homes, the Japanese people don't buy themselves a house, they build one. So instead of the sweeping identical stone-built boulevards of places like Paris, Bath, even Glasgow; you get a calamitous collection of different buildings. And you can always count on a building site in every neighbourhood, where brand new homes are poured from concrete, made to order in weeks.

As we get closer to the centre, we come to Yokohama Bay, and we introduce ourselves to the industrial bay, bridges, and Minato Mirai 21 the CBD constructed in the 1980's.

Minato Mirai 21 is a 1980's CBD in the same mould as Canary Wharf or La Defense, but i'm here as a guest so now is not the time for a critical rant, let's just enjoy some photography of the buildings and the coastal park, which was being mightily enjoyed by the locals and their children.

Sushi

It was here in Yokohama that I have had my first proper sushi experience, complete with conveyor belts and live chef viewing.

It was a really interesting experience being able to sample such a wide range of different fish, both raw and cooked. The raw fish really does taste good, extra tender and fresh. Safe to say I sampled a wide variety.

From left to right, top to bottom:

Octopus, Squid, Mackerel; Something Fried; Shrimp, Some cooked fish with cheese, Raw Tuna, I think this was tuna too.

As with the Yakatori, there were some unfamiliar options, Octopus, Squid and tiny shrimp, eyes legs and all. The fish though, the tuna and especially the mackerel were exceptionally tasty and this is the difference between Boots packaged £3 sushi packs and proper Japanese sushi that I was looking for.

Minato Mirai 21 and The Art Gallery

Once we were full, it was back out into the CBD for a gentle stroll, The Ferris Wheel and the Yokohama Landmark tower are the two major sights that really put you in Yokohama and not some other worldwide post-modern business district.

We also stopped in the Yokohama Museum, where as well as modern art;

There was a fantastic section showing the history of Yokohama through art, which included this historical painting by P. B. W. Heine showing the American landing at Yokohama in March 8th, 1854.

A brief stop in Tokyo

Another busy weekend comes to a close with a brief dash Through central Tokyo;

The famous Shibuya crossing, the one on every film ever, was our train station, but we weren't here for sightseeing, in fact, we went quickly through to the sports area, to join a planned 5-a-side football session.

Little did I know, our planned venue was right in the shadow of Kenzo Tange's world-famous 1964 Yoyogi National Gymnasium, an architectural destination I was planning to visit at some point anyway.

Safe to say, Tokyo is something else, a giant sprawl of sight after sight, I'm going to have to make several stops here in the coming months.

This morning Japan was hit with a 6.9 magnitude Earthquake, I was woken at 6am in the morning to find my room gently rocking. However, it was apparently only a 3 magnitude in my area, and luckily, the tsunami threat subsided. It was my first experience of an earthquake, and the steel-framed building seemed well within it's means, thankfully I am still around, although the Japanese people didn't seem too phased in the morning.