Ramen in my belly

I don't know if you all saw it, but the NY Times ran a piece on Tokyo's ramen culture back in January (here). Ramen in Japan is not the carboard ramen noodles that we have in the U.S. Ramen is a dish that came over from China, and it involves thin noodles in a broth often topped with meats and veggies. There are different kinds of ramen broths: some with pork bases, some with seafood bases, etc. The places that sell ramen are often just counters where you order a bowl and you stand while eating. In the case of those places mentioned by the NY Times, they're actual restaurants, albeit without menus, without signs, and definitely without English spoken or written anywhere.

And so I decided to set off and find one of the places tonight. You can see the front of the restaurant in the image above and that the sign is in Japanese. I was shocked that we found it since it's a part of town we've never seen and we can't read the maps. This place, Ikaruga, is known for their tonkatsu (pork)-based broth. It's a little thick and very flavorful. Typically, there are soft-boiled eggs in ramen, and in this case there were also pork slices, some burdock root, some nori (seaweed), and some green onions. Heaven.


As much as I'm getting an architectural education while I'm over here, my secret motive is to try all the food for which Japan and its regions are known. I think I'm doing a bang-up job so far.

Some Church and Some Factory

We're wrapping up in Tokyo (only tomorrow left here), and so we're doing some sort of random things during the day. This morning, we visited a mid-century Modern church by Antonin Raymond that is almost perfectly intact from 1955. After exploring it for awhile and trying my best to not run over the organ and start playing, we took a train to Hasuda, 20 miles north of Tokyo. The Sekisui Chemical Company has a plant there where they prefabricate entire houses. Henry Ford had no idea what his little conveyor belt would end up spawning, and I've never seen efficiency like this. We were forbidden from taking pictures because some of the robots they've developed to do the work are completely unique; I'm sorry about that because I wish I could transport you to this place. On any given day, they complete 140 units which then ultimately make about 10 houses. 10 houses a day! Good grief. And once the units of the houses are packaged and shipped to the site, they are assembled and roofed in 1 day. ONE DAY.

It's all a conveyor belt system. The steel frame units are roughly 10' x 12' x 10' and put together by a combination of robots and skilled workers through welding. This makes them earthquake resistant and extremely strong. Then they're fitted with floors, ceilings, and walls that have built in electrical wiring, and packaged up to go out. Everything is fire resistant, so these buildings should withstand earthquake, fire, typhoon, and sandstorm. Additionally, they all have photovoltaic panels, so they provide their own energy.

It was unbelievable. But the catch is that they are not cheap. So, maybe it's not time to export this awesome method around the world yet...

Sunday in Yokohama

On a cold, blustery, cloudy day in May, Lindsay had her favorite architectural moment of 2010: We went south of Tokyo today to Yokohama, now Tokyo's major port. The Yokohama International Port Terminal building, completed in 2002 by FOA, is located there. One of the most studied buildings by architecture students these days, this building has only existed in myth and my imagination for years now. To be able to walk on it and go into it was an unbelievable experience. So, here's a few images of this great masterpiece of architecture:


Afterward, we toured a couple of Maekawa buildings from the mid-century, most notably the performance hall.Starving and freezing, we headed to Chinatown in Yokohama for an all-you-can-eat dim sum dinner. There's a large Chinese population in Yokohama, so Chinatown was as vibrant and as active as in New York. Maybe it was the fried dim sum filled with custard or maybe it was the port terminal building, but I had a great, great day.

The rest of Saturday...

And once we left the fish market, it was a whirlwind day. We headed straight to the Nagakin Capsule Tower (above) which is a super famous, Metabolist icon from the mid-century built by Kurokawa here in Tokyo when he was 26. It's this crazy building where each pod can (theoretically) be pulled off the core and replaced when needed. Now in terrible shape, it's threatened with demolition. We actually got to go inside and see two units which were the size of a ship's cabin each (picture below). That was a major highlight of the trip.

Then we headed to an architecture exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and saw some great installations by Atelier Bow Wow and Toyo Ito (image below), among others.



We finished off the day with a walking tour through the imperial gardens (below), the Marunouchi district (a financial area), the Tokyo International Forum building by Rafael Vinoly, and Ginza (a major retail area) where we did some more famous architect/major retailer/building spotting.

The Tokyo International Forum by Rafael Vinoly

Louis Vuitton by Jun Aoki

The Hermes building by Renzo Piano

Mikimoto by Toyo Ito

Dinner was at the Sapporo beer hall, and then we finished off the night with cocktails at this swanky, underground speakeasy in Ginza. No karaoke last night... but sometime soon.

Tokyo Fish Market

Yesterday morning we started off the day wandering through the Tsukiji ("skee-gee") fish market in Tokyo. Every morning, the fishermen come in from the water to the back of the huge structure, unload their catches, and then the various stall vendors slice, dice, and sell their fish to the city at large. There's a huge tuna auction every morning at 6am, and all of Tokyo's restaurants buy here. It was enormous, and there were some really cool fish. I have also never, ever seen fish that large... the tuna were like 6' in length. And you better believe everything is so fresh that the place didn't even smell fishy.

American Celebrity Spotting, Round 2

The royalties from "Titanic" aren't enough, Leo?

Day Trip to Nikko

Today we headed out of Tokyo to a touristy spot up in the mountains called Nikko. Famous for its waterfall, Kegon Falls, and the lake, Lake Chuzenji, Nikko is a whole different climate than Tokyo. I am in love with the Japanese landscape. Even though it's a lot of the same plants as in Louisiana and the States, cypress, azalea, hydrangea, etc., the moss, ferns, and the different species make it really gorgeous.

So, throughout the 20th century, the embassies in Tokyo built summer villas up at Nikko to escape the summer heat/humidity (which, purportedly, is worse than New Orleans in August... doubtful). We visited the Italian Embassy designed by Antonin Raymond (a Frank Lloyd Wright protege), the falls, and then we went to Toshogu Shrine. Toshogu Shrine is amazingly overdone for Japanese architecture; it is actually a better example of Chinese architecture. It was still neat to see, and the forest setting of the complex was really beautiful.

We're back in Tokyo tonight, and tomorrow's a fabulous day of heading to the fish market, the neighborhood of Ginza, and then... KARAOKE! Woooohoooooo! Sushi, shopping, and karaoke? Now, that's a Saturday I can get on board with.

A baby monkey on the street.

Lake Chuzenji

Italian Embassy Villa on the edge of the lake

Kegon Falls. It actually falls a lot further than what you can see, making it more impressive than a piddly stream. I also just realized I frequently wear this yellow sweater when photographed. I do own more clothes than just this one cardigan (though I really love it), and I happened to be wearing it on the outside of 4 layers today. Oops.

Toshogu Shrine pagoda

Check out the Flickr page for all the pictures from today. There are some really cool ones.

Conveyor. Belt. Sushi.

YES. YESSSSSSSS! We finally, FINALLY had sushi. And it came on a conveyor belt. The restaurant was called Maguro Bito ("Tuna" something...), and all the seats were around an island of sushi chefs who created rolls and sashimi and then placed them on a moving conveyor belt. You picked off what you wanted as it went by, and ten plates later, you were full and not sure what you had eaten. We tried some funky stuff... we think we had some raw baby octopus, clams, and of course, tuna. I ate something that I don't know what it was, but it was weird. Talk about sensory overload; this place was the greatest place on Earth.

Museums, Museums, and More Museums

In order, here are the museums we visited today:

1. The Museum of Western Art by Le Corbusier

2. The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures by Yoshio Taniguchi

3. The International Library of Children's Literature by Tadao Ando (an old building they added on to, but you can see from this image that the upper floors of the addition allow you to touch the exterior facade of the old building. Very cool.)

4. The GA Gallery (Global Architecture magazine's gallery space where they show project models/boards featured in the magazine)

The first three were part of a large museum complex in the Ueno area of Tokyo and were nestled in the city's oldest park. They are all very famous architecturally, and so, I wasn't really looking at the contents too closely. I did see a great Monet today, though. The GA Gallery was my personal dream because it also had an amazing library of architecture books on contemporary architects, and the models on display were so, so, so cool. One was made of bubble wrap. It was in the Harajuku district which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite places on earth because of its concentration of beautiful architecture and fashion (Omotesando is part of Harajuku).

Tokyo, Day 2

Day 2 in Tokyo was action-packed. We started off the morning by heading to Roppongi which is a district known for shopping and commercial activity kind of like midtown Manhattan. There's a huge skyscraper called the Mori Tower that we went to the observation deck of and that also contains an art museum. That's the view (above) from the deck of the Mori Tower looking at Tokyo Tower (the red and white Eiffel Tower looking thing... it was a little foggy). We saw a fabulous contemporary art exhibit there on another floor, and one of the artists was featured at Prospect.1 in New Orleans in January 2009 with the same installation. Go NOLA for being ahead of the curve. Below is a picture of this great sound installation piece.

We then went to Tokyo Midtown, a huge skyscraper mall/tower complex that is loosely based on the Rockefeller Center complex idea of mixing business/retail/public space. And this was no ordinary mall... We're talking Chloe, Marni, Harry Winston, etc. Super high-end. Who knew Muji sold clothes?! Also a beautiful building. There's a Tadao Ando museum at Tokyo Midtown that we visited, but more importantly, we shopped (I kid). This is the Ando 21_21 Design Sight building:


We followed that up with a visit to the National Art Center by Kurokawa. It has this great undulating glass facade with horizontal louvers.

And then we headed to this wacky mid-century Modern theater called the Nissay Theater to see the interior. It's supposed to look like it's under the sea, so the theater ceiling is covered in shells. The entire lobby is white and hot pink. These shots are the theater interior:



The day was capped off by attending Pecha Kucha night in Tokyo, its place of origin, where we watched not only our professor present, but some awesome artists/entrepreneurs give little lectures. Imagine my surprise when a UVa professor presented, too (John Quale).


It was an awesome day.

More Beautiful Buildings...

Omotesando not only has great shopping, but the buildings are all designed by starchitects. So, here's a few of those. Most of them are great by day, and stunning by night. Prada and Tod's are my favorite. Well, maybe Dior. Ah! I don't know! I love them all!

The Tod's building...

Dior...

Prada...
Nike (looks kind of like a swoosh)...

And Cartier...