Tokyo International Forum

This is Tokyo International Forum and some conferences and concerts are often held here.

MUJI store

A price tag is labeled on a sliding door in a MUJI store, a Japanese retail chain, just like Japanese IKEA.

Anyway, what does the store sell?

A prefab house is sold at the store. It is a basic but stylish and is sold at JPY 16 millions, USD 0.13 millions.

The store also sells simple and design conscious items.

By the way, MUJI, 無印, means "no brand."

Beans

Gyu-don, beef rice bowl

This is a beef rice bowl at Yoshinoya, a major chain restaurant in Japan. We eat the beef rice bowl only, but some people eat the bowl with a half-boiled egg and miso soup. The egg, along with a little soy sauce, is put on the beef.

The food is delicious and reasonable, less than USD4.00 , so popular especially with young people.

The building of glass in Tokyo

This glass-block building is a shop of Hermes in Ginza, Tokyo and designed by an Italian architect, Renzo Piano in 2001.

Glass blocks prevent the inside from being seen clearly and, at the same time, make known the light and atmosphere of the inside. These are just like Akari-shoji, Japanese thin-paper door.

By the way, La maison de verre in Paris, designed by Pierre Chareau, is the masterpiece of early 20th-century architecture and use many glass block effectively.

Tokyo evening

Sunset in Tokyo

Ramen

Ramen is one of the most popular foods in Japan, as well as curry rice and beef rice bowl, especially with young people. There are many kinds of ramens and all of them, four kinds of tastes are popular, soy sauce, miso, salt and pork, tonkotsu in Japanese, taste. Recently the mixture of soy sauce with pork taste is becoming popular in Tokyo.

By the way, what kinds of foods for lunch are popular with young people in your country?

Some salt by the entrance of Japanese restaurant

This is an entrance of a traditional Japanese restaurant. By both sides of the entrance is put some salt on the white small dishes.

The salt is put to purify the restaurant to welcome guests. It also means to keeps the dirty from there. The host throw out some salt at the entrance just after unwelcome guests go out of the restaurant to keep them away.

Sumo, Japanese-style wrestling, wrestlers also throw out some salt before they play the game. It also means that the ring is sacred place for them. Sumo derives from a kind of festival of Shinto, Japanese animistic religion. Shinto dislike the dirty very much.

Oh, be careful not to lick the salt by the entrance even if Japanese cuisine don't have much taste!!

Tower Record is still alive in Tokyo!

Some paper said that Tower Record in US went bankrupt, influenced by supermarkets and Internet store, like Walmart, Target, Costoco, Amazon.com and iTMS.

But Tower Record in Tokyo is still alive and tied up with Napster.

Gacha-Gacha: a small capsule for small toys

These vending machines sell small toys and are called "Gacha-Gacha."

Enter one or two 100 yen coin(s) below the handle, turn the small handle and then you can get a capsule. A capsule contains little toys or accessory for kids.

A bridge over Sumida River

The roots of Japanese department stores

This is Takashimaya in Japan. (Another photo is taken at Mitsukoshi.)

NYC's Takashimaya, shot by Brian of New York Daily Photo, is here.

Japanese famous department stores, Takashiyama, Mitsukoshi and Isetan, come from Japanese luxury clothes, Kimono, shops.

PS. Coincidentally the building is similar to the one in Athens Daily Photo.

Sexy shoes

Berluti's long nose leather shoes are absolutely gems that spice up the streets. Every time I come across a Berluti's shop, I can't help looking at these art objects for a while....

City lights

The buildings of Hermes and Sony are in line.

The Hermes one, designed by Renzo Piano, elegantly illuminates the night of Tokyo with modest incandescent lamps through 12,000 glass blocks.

The Sony one stylishly lights up the city with colored lights through the skin of glasses.

Tokyo's night has many kinds of lights.

A blue sky in winter

A park in winter

This park, Hibiya Park, is in the center of Tokyo and near the Imperial Palace. This is just like Central Park in NYC but much smaller than it and has no museum.

Tokyo is now in the middle of winter and becoming much colder. The branches on this side have no leaf and just like capillary vessels. The air is very dry and crispy behind the clear sky.

Personally I love to go to the park early in the morning in winter....

A clear sky of the riverside in Tokyo

A sky in winter in Tokyo is very clear because of less rain and humidity. In a park along the river are people sitting on the bench, jogging, walking... It is a peaceful Sunday.

Hoppy, non alcohol beer in Japan

This is a car promoting hoppy, something of a non-alcohol beer, made in Japan. Beer used to be expensive about 50 years ago, and people drink hoppy mixed with Shochu, more reasonable alcohol in Japan, as a substitute for beer.

Beer is not so expensive in Japan today and hoppy is not so popular as it was. I have not tried hoppy yet, but would like to try it soon.

By the way, I took this photo by digital camera attached cell phone.

A dance floor in those days!!

This is a photo in a museum in Tokyo. These small dolls and latest survey show that some Japan cities had some discos in those days. The doll in the center is dancing to the rhythm of drum.

Oh, sorry. Just kidding:-)

Actually these were stored in Horyuji Temple, an old and famous temple in Japan. They may be something of a kind of gods.

Have a nice weekend.

What do they watch?

These are the objects near NTV of Shiodome in Tokyo. They are just like spider man!!

Coincidence

This was made about 400 years ago in Japan and is like the works of Oribe Furuta, one of greatest tea masters in Japanese history, as well as Senno Rikyu, Ensyu Kobori and Juko Murata.

Also, this is like the ones of Alvar Aalto, one of greatest architects in 20th century, as well as Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.

What a coincidence!

iDepartment store in Tokyo

The illumination changes like the classic i Mac.

Soba and udon noodle bars

Tokyo has many soba and udon noodle snack bars and we eat them at bars standing up.

They are sold at from 3 to 6 USD and the bars feature some kinds of toppings, including kelp, tempura, eggs, sliced polk and so on.

The vending machine are put at the entrance. We buy tickets in the machine and pass it to clerks.

The bars are rather reasonable and convenient.

They look real but...

This object is exhibited at the landing in Tokyo National Museum. It consists of pine, plum and camellia, tubaki in Japanese. All of them mean to celebrate a new year.

When I carefully look at them for a while, I feel something strange... You know why? Because the flowers of plum and camellia is not real ones!! They are artificial! They are well-made!!

Personally I prefer the real flowers. I think the flowers are beautiful all the more because the beauty doesn't last long. The imitation flowers are never used at Japanese tea ceremony because their beauty last long and one of the essence of the tea ceremony is the fleeting beauty.

A Taniguchi's work

This is a museum designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, one of great architects in Japan or in the world today. He masterfully designed many museums, including new MOMA in NYC. His works are simple but light and elegant.

How to get some change

This is the most popular shrine in Japan and three millions people visit there in three days of New Year season.

By the way, we throw into a box, called saisen-bako, to pray for gods. We used to present some kinds of foods to the gods because the gods are the ones of agriculture. The food change into coins perhaps because it is hard for people working in shrine to clean up the rotten food.

People throw coins, which are about from 5 to 100 yen. Some of them present a 10000 yen bill. Assuming that a person give 10 yen to shrine, the shrine get 30 million yen in three days at least.

I really recommend you to wear some clothes with hood and you to pray just in front of the box for the coins. Some of prayers throw coins towards the box but the coins don't reach the box. If you are lucky enough, some changes can slip into your hood. ..

Oh, I seem to be impious....

Fukubukuro, sealed lucky bag

It was about 8 am in the morning on 2 January. People are waiting in line in front of department store to buy fuku-bukuro, sealed lucky bag. It is filled with random goods and are sold at reasonable price, about 50 percent off. People want to buy them partly because of a lavish event. Stores wanted to sell them mainly because they want to get rid of the excess merchandises. But if sellers put only unpopular items in lucky bag, people would not buy them. So sellers may mix better items with the unpopular things in the bags, I would think.

I have not bought the bag simply because I don't want to have unnecessary stuffs.

Fantastic clock

This big clock, installed on the wall of a NTV building, was designed by Hayao Miyazaki, the talented animation director in Japan. Some dolls close to the clock face dance to the music at regular intervals.

Hakone Ekiden, marathon relay in a new year

Ekiden, a long distance relay race, is popular for watching in Japan and the Hakone Ekiden is especially popular. It is held in 2 and 3 January every year and selected college teams in Japan compete. Each runner have to run over 20 kilo meters and each team, consisted of ten members, have to run over 200 kilo meters.

The sport is not so exciting as football, baseball and basketball, but watching this sport make people re-realize the spirit, one for all" and "all for one".

The theme day, "My best photograph from last year"

Here you are!

A new-year's delicious present from Tokyo, Japan!!

I wish you a lot of happiness and joy in 2007!


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52 Daily Photo sites are participating in the 1st January theme, "My best photograph from last year", please use the links to below to visit them.

Due to time zone differences and other factors, the theme photo may not be displayed until later if you are viewing early in the day.

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