I like rain, in japanese ame, I love it especially in the evening, in the fading ligth, I love the reflections on the stones of the pavements. I love the colors and the incredible nuances of blue, purple and pink, or the red, green reflections of urban lights.
In this picture taken from the window of my family in Kitakata at sunset, just stopped raining, the clouds in the sky opened at the orizon and the blue sky shined reflecting on the old stones of the street.
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.
Otaru is a small town in Okkaido, the big northern island of Japan, so in Winter is very cold and snowy! The main attraction there is ..... seafood!
There is a nice fish market, people is very friendly and open, and are proud of their own products. This giant crab was really impressive, I just would be scared at handling it alive, much less to hanle it dead on a plate ...... raw or barbecued! The crab taste is fantastic in both ways, in soup as well. A variety of recepiesare very good, sashimi, sushi, grilled, in soups. Once in a restaurant I had on my plate an alive srimp! Not scared but impressed, it was cleaned of his shell tail, and the head was there and little arms still moving! I waited a little and as soon hi stopped moving I deeped into soy sauce and ...... was the end of it. Cannibal!
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 Koriyama I found a miniature jinja in a niche cut in a commercial building. Is not so rare in Japan to find something lik this, probably it was the site of an ancient temple, may be destroyed, and the site remains holy land, the building develops itself around the site, to save space, and preserve the holy place. The temple is miniaturized (1 meter high), the wooden Torii (gate) is half way between life size and miniature, (1,5 meter) a child can get through standing, an adult should stoop, but is not a place to enter, just stop outside, bow and say a prayer..... I haven't meet a srinked priest, may be was gon for a little walk?
Tis is a Buddist priest celebrating a ritual of purification in Noghijinja in Asakasa, Tokyo. Is a great small temple on an hill ands surrounded by a park with very old trees in a modern residencial and commercial area of Tokyo. The big ves with large sleeves is called Hō. The wooden laquered clogs are called Asagutsu.
The Omikuji are little paper folded into a stripe and tied up to wires or little structures in Temples in Japan. The paper have an oracle written on it telling the future or giving advice on different subjects like love, work, study, family. Visiting a Jinja, especially on New Year's day, people ask for advice or fortune telling, after giving a small donation, people take a wooden box and after shaking it they extract from a little hole a numbered wooden stick and the Omikuji corresponding to that number is given by an attendant. After reading it, the paper is folded into a stripe and tied to a structure or a tree in the temple ground, in this temple, Nogijinja in Akasaka, Tokyo was shaped like a ball, interesting effect.
Tsukune is a barbecued hamburger of chicken meat, like Yakitori bar dish, at home is made more simly in a pan. Accompained by soy sauce or lemon and salt and salad. Taste very good, and in yakitori restaurant are shaped like a sausage and cooked on a bamboo spit, this is the home cooking version. A traditional side salad in Japanese cisine is the raw cabbage (the one used for sauerkrauts) sliced very very thin no dressing is used. Again this is a photo for an Italian magazine of few years back.
Matcha is the Green Tea minced into a thin powder, used in Japan for the Tea Ceremony and now used in many recepies. Here used to make a great siphon cake, with flour, whip up eggs, sugar and macha. Is great accompained by whiped cream or ice cream. Matcha (green tea in general)have a great amount of vitamin C, very good for health, so is good to eat in the milk or yogurt with honey.
This are called Kaki-no-tane, literally kaki seeds, just the name, this are Japanese classic snacks at the bar or at home. You can see peanuts and the other are little crackers, of course there is soy sauce in the ingredients, they are crunchy like pretzels but taste differently. The one I love the most are wasabi flavour, fantastic with an iced beer or a cold sake. mmmmmhh very stimulating!
In Wakamatsu, on a back street I fount an old small Jinja suffocate by tall modern buildings, the site is very nice, shame for the surroundings. A red Torii and a Chozuya, a basin in stone filled with fresh (here very fresh, freezing) water to wash hands and rinse the mouth entering into the temple garden, to purify yourself before to enter the main temple, using the dipper on the right in the picture. Washing hands and mouth simbolise cleaning yourself from everyday life and worries and present yourself in front of God with clean, pure soul.
A stone lantern, Ishidoro, coverd with snow close to a temple in Kitakata, and around trees protected from the snow by a structure of wood and ropes to sustain the branches to avoid breking under the wait of the snow. Winter in this region is long and usually cold and snowy, in this moment is Febuary and in Milano the weather is nice, not too cold (10C° in the day 0C° at night) and I saw on a web cam in Kitakata and Wakamatsu is snowing copiously and windy! Like to have a look for yourself? Go here. Fukushima region with many web cams locate in different locations, everytime I look Kitakata (top left on the map) or the Wakamatsu Station (JR on the map), I became nostalgic!
Cold day but sunny in Kitakata, in 2005 was my first time in Japan in Winter I was amazed to see how differen looks the landscape from Summer, especially because are very famous images of Japan in Spring or Autumn (the best seasons to visit) and rarely are seen pictures of Winter.Erroneusly we think of Japan of a warm country, always sunny and covered of cherry flowers ..... In fact Japan is a very long Country, longer than Italy considering only the main three islands, the there are tousand of small islands in the South, Okinawa is the most famous for the infamous battle in WW II. Torii are this pillars at the entrance of any temple (Jinja) in Japan, most of the times sre red, but an be raw wood or stone or concrete. They simbolize the passage, the division from the material world to the spiritual world. Somethimes a single Torii is found and somethimes a gallery forming portico is found, very nice to walk inside and be inside this tunnel that reveal the temple at the end little by little, because are very rarely on a straight path, always forming a curve, a tortuose road like life is harduous journey to reach the true spirituality.
This is Green Tea Icecream witt a spalsh of Soy Beans marmelade, I love it, Matcha Icecream is very popular in Japan in many different shape and makers, even Haagen Dazs make a fantastic green tea icecream, unfortunately they are not selling it abroad. In kosks or supermarkets there are icecream machines with many exotic flavors, like sesame, I like it very much and the colour is weird, dark grey .... but is good. The presentation is always fantastic in Japan, the sense of aestetic is very stron in Japanese culture and tradition, always simple, clean, essential, we says minimalistic. I'm fashinated by this common sense of Japanese peolpe, the care and love they put in every little thing, arigatou!
Sushi is my favourite food above all and Midori Sushi in Umegaoka, Tokyo, is my favourite sushi bar of all, and now I have quite a good experience and taste. In Japan are called sushi bars and not restaurant because at the beginning, in the Meiji era, this was a fast food to be consumed standing at the bar, nowadays there are also sushi restaurants with tables but I prefer, and sushi lovers as well, to seat on stools at the bar, in front of the cook, admire him working, choose the fish or seafood one by one, and to have a conversation with the cook, if you are able (I'm not ;-). Is a fashinating spectacle to see a good suhi cook at work. In the back of the bar cooks clean and prepare the fishes, the seafoods and cooks the rice for all the suhi cooks at the bar. But a chief cooks make the difference, even with same ingredients, I experienced few times, the result is different. At Midori Sushi bar, Shimizu san, the chief cook has always the que of customers waiting to be served by him only, even if there are four of them at the bar, hi is really special.
I believe hes secret ingredient is ..... love! That's the difference, for him is not just work or a job, this is his passion and love, it, that make his work art.
For the first time in 2007 the word famous Michelin restourant guide have done the Tokyo red guide and awarded more stars in this town than in any other part of the word, even Paris, and for the first time a sushi bar was awarded three stars! The chef is the 82-year-old Jiro Ono of Sukiyabashi Jiro sushi. This decision has been very controversial, because, critics says, the restaurant is very small and the toilet is outside ..... probably the negative criticism was just........ envy, I think. The food and the taste are the only issue to be considered.
Sushi and sashimi are accompained happily by beer, and Japanese beer is very good, and even better by sake, the rice whine. I prefer it cold and lightly sweet sake, there are so many different kinds, from very dry to very sweet.
At Shinjuku there ia a great department store Takashiyama, take half of the glass building with red sign, the other half is home of Tokyu Hands, the DIY paradise! 5 storey (or mte) where you can find everything from camping and travel, home funishing and cooking, art, painting, drawing, pottery making, lighting, shoes making, wood craft ...... I really love it, I can spend hours looking and browsing trough the never ending shelfs.Again about streets lights, here you can see coloured lights to light a walking path in between a building site! Just out of Shijuku underground and train station in Tokyo. Is very nice the clock tower, a bit old, surrounded by very modern glass buildings. And there are more renovation work in progress.
