Monument, usually, are celebration of important people, heroes or significant events in history. But why not celebrate somthing that changed life of millions of youngsters and less young people all over the word: the walkman and his headphone, something that become a philosophy of life.

Forgive me but I forgot to look for the author of this pop sculpture, if not splendid, is amusing and fun. I found this monument in Shinagawa, a new area of Tokyo, is on claimed land, it was sea and the industrious Japanese people decided to strech their town into the see, they build a wonderfull modern area with canal and nice view on the ocean.

Do you like it?

In Koriyama there is the Planetarium on top of this tall building, inside the sphere! Looks great and is the tollest planetarium in the word, on fine days the vew is fantastic. This building is convenientely locate beside the train station, just outside, turn left and you can see it, can't miss it.

This is Tokyo Tower is  is 332.6 m (1,091 ft) tall, is the tallest structure in Japan and is located in Shiba Park. With the antenna is 8 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, from wich take not only ispiration but the design, a bit slimmer, however it weighs only 4000 tons, instead of 7,300 of the French tower, it was completed in 1958, 69 years after the French sister. Are the Japanese satisfied by this? Not at all, they are working at a new and toller tower, to be opened in 2011, the Sumida Tower. I have no pictures of this .... yet, forgive me.

On the Tokyo Tower there is an aquarium, a wax museum, two panoramic decks but not at the top, it is possible to walk up 600 steps to the lower one. It is also a television and radio antenna. From the two decks 150 and 250 meters) the wiew is great and in clear days can see the Mount Fuji.

Also in Spporo, bigger town in Okkaido, there is a Tower, one of local landmarks, like the Tokyo Tower is lit nicely. On the main road there is a great garden and in winter, for the Christmas festivity, there is a great show of lights, in different shapes and forms, decorating trees and many are just luminous sculptures, a lot of people gather there to watch this great display and take photographs, even if it's very cold and a lot of a lot of snow cover the whole town. Is a social occasion and Japanese people like to partecipate at gathering and love contemplation, simple pleasures in life! I love it.

This is a side building housing a big bell, the green thing inside the window. The bell is used in buddist ceremonies by the priest. Is a very nice architecture, very clean, probably re-build not too long ago. in Japan traditional architecture is all made with wood structure, so after a certain number of years is not possible to restore it, must be rebuilt, keeping all parts that are not damaged, inside furnishing and architectural decorations. The courtyard is big and on the side of it there is a nice small garden very well kept. In the other picture we can see the innter temple, the altar with a statue of Lord Buddha and other accessories for rituals, like a big black bell on the left of the altar, tha wooden box on the floor in front of the altar is the Saisenbako, is an offertory box and people throw money into it before they says a prayer. 

In December 2005 I went for the first time to Japan in winter, that day was a very sunny but extremely and windy day, for that reason the sky was deeply blue (with a bit of help from a polarizing filter). This Temple is in Koriyama, a big town north of Tokyo on the Shinkansen (fast train) line half way to Okkaido. In this town there are very few old buildings, few Jinja, is all modern or just a bit old, modern urbanization devoured everything. Very little personality in the landscape. Just temple and graveyards are tokens of a great past with an incredible rich culture and art, even in the architectural styles. Probably only Kyoto has mantained the splendour of the past, in fact it was the ancient capital of Japan.