Ohanami or the flower viewing is the most popular spring activities in Japan. Unfortunately, this year 2020, due to the spread of the COVID-19, we are advised not to do flower viewing. But we can still enjoy flower viewing on the website. ...
EOAs of 25 March, 2019, there are still 8 more weeks to go until the exhibition of Le Corbusier at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo will finish. This is the exhibition to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the museum which was designed by the world renown architect, ...
The atmosphere of good old days in Japan is, in my opinion, best reflected in alleys. Even today, if you go into the narrow streets, you can find something inherited from good old days. Wondering around the alleys is one of the fun things to do for example in Yanesen ...
In Tokyo, museums and galleries often hold exhibitions of international arts. For example, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno now exhibits paintings of Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita. He was a Japanese-French painter of École de Paris. The poster of this exhibition used one of his famous paintings, “Cafe” which now belongs ...
Sometimes, Japanese shops have unique facade. I would like to show them to you whenever I found one. Today, let me present you the examples I saw recently. Facade 1: A Carpenter on the Roof The first one is the roof of the office of a construction company Takachiho Construction ...
When I went to Kuramae last time, I saw a stationery shop called Kakimori. This is a very unique shop where you can make your own one-and-only notebook. There are two sizes you can choose from; B5 (182x257mm) and B6 (128x182mm). ...
Kuramae has quite a few artisans’ workshops. Sometimes the town is called as Brooklyn in Tokyo. If you visit those workshops, you may find something special is waiting for you. Those crafts are what you cannot find in the ordinary chain stores or branches of large-scale retail shops. ...
Kuramae is a town of wholesalers. As I wrote in the previous posting, there are shops old and new. Kuramae in Japanese means “in front of the rice warehouses”. It was called so because there used to be rice warehouses where Edo Government during 17th – 19th Century kept rice ...
Kuramae is not far from Asakusa and a kind of “emerging artisanal area” as lots of craft shops lined up along the street. Some of them are century-old shops and some are new comers including trendy cafes. There is a good mixture of old and new. ...
One of the largest plants markets is held in Asakusa every year at the last weekend of May and June. Japanese people love growing plants since the old times. People go to plants markets and buy a flower pot or two. Sometimes they are bonsai pots. If you visit Asakusa at ...