From the streets of Osaka.

Osaka means good takoyaki.

Koshien is a quiet suburb of Osaka near Kobe and the Roko mountain range. Koshien is also home to the Koshien Stadium baseball stadium – the home of the national high school tournament and Hanshin Tigers.  We took an early morning walk around Koshien.

A huge “danchi” housing complex (150 five story buildings – 5,000 units) built in the early 60′s – slowly parts of it are being torn down for modern high-rise condos while others are being reformed as university experiments. (公団浜甲子園団地)

The curse of Colonel Sanders that was tossed into Osaka’s Dotonbori River and was believed to have cursed the Hanshin Tigers baseball team for 25 years until the Colonel was discovered.

We went with our nieces to KidZania in Osaka. Kidzania’s an educational theme park that got its start in Mexico City and now has locations all around the world, including 2 in Japan. There are plans to build one in the US.

Kidzania’s a brilliant concept – its a secure child-sized replica of a city where children can role-play “jobs” in a corporate-sponsored office or factory.  Jobs such as baker, surgeon, pilot, fireman, financial analyst, train conductor, radio personality, news anchor, etc. After each job, they get paid in Kidzania currency that they access by opening a bank account, make withdrawls using an atm, and use it to buy food and goods. They can also apply for a credit card. The kids are on their own including finding employment, waiting in line, and asking for information – the parents mainly observe (i.e. sleep) or they can go shop or dine (one parent must remain in the park), since the KidZania is the anchor for a shopping center.

Its always nighttime in Kidzania – part of the appeal since kids usually aren’t allowed to stay up that late and can play “grown-up”. Numerous security measure are in place, each child and parent are tracked with a bracelet.

Line up to get in. There are 2 “sessions” morning and late afternoon.

Figuring out employment

Train conductor and driver

Job anxiety

Maturnity Ward

Photojounalists

Fashion designer

Radio personality

Reporter

Financial analyst

Analyzing the viability of a business

Barber

Pizza maker

Baker

Dentist

Visiting the bank

Attorney

Sushi chef

Coca-cola bottler

Surgeon

Tired parents

Nagoya is Toyota

Nagoya style

Dinner – Wagyu beef, supposedly wagyu beef fat is closer to fish fat than regular beef fat…maybe just propaganda…

Subliminal advertising…was wondering why I wanted to order an A6.

A quick trip to Shinjuku to shop at the Isetan Department Store…Shinjuku is home to the world’s busiest train station (3.6 million people pass through it everyday).

A walk through Ginza on a nice sunny day.

Walking through walls.

(Its been a busy couple of months at work and I’m way behind on my postings.)
Customer’s queuing up for the opening of a department store sale.

To the back of the line

The back of the line (its well marked)

Store opening

A crowded smoking area

Streetside Starbucks…

Closing time

Continuing my walk from Omotesando to Meiji Shrine (part 1) and then back through Harajuku to Omotesando (part 2).

Ugg Boots are still in on Takeshita-dori (竹下通り) – I just don’t get this street, why is it always so crowded and I find none of the stores interesting…sucks to get old.

Lucky Charms out shopping

You can choose your future…at least that’s what the monitor says.

Made it back but my wife’s still shopping…

We had the opportunity to tour the amazing Phoenix House that Sebastian Mariscal Studio is building for a client in North Coastal San Diego (Cardiff-by-the-Sea).  Its great to tour a house under construction with the architect, who can explain the design philosophy around each area.  The house is totally concrete, rare in San Diego.  It features numerous courtyards and roof gardens that will be planted with trees and other vegetation.  The house is 2 stories + basement (which is also rare in San Diego).

The courtyards are simply not open dirt areas but are built on top of the basement and are of varying depths, some are deep for trees and others less so.  Even the roof gardens are deep so that trees can be planted.

The house leads in from mystery with areas that feature beautiful shadows to bright open but private areas.  Brings to mind the architectural essay book “In Praise of Shadows” by Junichiro Tanizaki:

And so it has come to be that the beauty of a Japanese room depends on the variation of shadows, heavy shadows against light shadows—it has nothing else. Westerners are amazed at the simplicity of Japanese rooms, perceiving in them no more than ashen walls bereft of ornament. Their reaction is understandable, but it betrays a failure to comprehend the mystery of shadows. Out beyond the sitting room, which the rays of the sun at best can but barely reach, we extend the eaves or build a veranda, putting the sunlight at still greater a remove. The light from the garden steals in but dimly through paper-paneled doors, and it is precisely this indirect light that makes for us the charm of the room. We do our walls in neutral colors so that the sad, fragile, dying rays can sink into absolute repose. The storehouse, kitchen, hallways, and such may have a glossy finish, but the walls of the sitting room will almost always be of clay textured with fine sand. A luster here would destroy the soft fragile beauty of the feeble light. We delight in the mere sight of the delicate glow of fading rays clinging to the surface of a dusky wall, there to live out what little life remains to them. We never tire of the sight, for to us this pale glow and these dim shadows far surpass any ornament…

From the foyer, up the stairs, across the floating bridge, to the second floor living area.

Interesting contrast with the neighbor’s house – after the vegetation is planted, the neighbor’s house will be less visible.

Slate floors

Indoor window

The dining and kitchen area leads to a roof garden that is deep enough for trees, at the other end of the roof garden is a children’s study room.

A roof patio with a sweeping ocean view – typically such a patio would be placed at the edge of the house closest to the ocean view, but this patio is set back behind a roof garden so that privacy could be preserved and still preserve the view.

The “floating” stairs will be filled in with glass.

Master bathroom (shower area) can open up to one of the courtyards

The back of the house

The varying depths of the courtyard makes for an interesting ceiling in the basement which features a huge garage.

A rendering video of what the house will be like when completed and filled in with vegetation can be seen here.  Sebastian Mariscal Studio is also building the Dwell House in Venice and its progress is being blogged by the client here on Dwell.com.

While my wife went shopping, I took a walk from Omotesando to Meiji Shrine (part 1) and then back through Harajuku to Omotesando (part 2).

(A walking fitness celebrity which I guess makes him required to wear fur)

Hello Kitty on drugs…the stress of being a celebrity…

The plum trees at our house are blooming a couple weeks early this year. The winter started out cold but has been very mild and it appears that spring has started early.

Some random shots from an aimless we took walk along the Edo Castle outer moat starting in Iidabashi and ending up in Akasaka. Tokyo being so safe, you can get lost and never a worry about ending up in a “bad” neighborhood.

Most people don’t realize that the body of water you see from the Chuo or Sobu line between Tokyo Station and Shinjuku was the outer moat. The moat was a nice unoccupied area where a train line could be built. The stations are located where the castle guard stations used to be located – again a convenient open piece of land.

Alone in the crowd

My father recently passed away peacefully in his sleep.  We went through some old slides and scanned a few of them.

Runners participating in the Honolulu Marathon start in downtown, run through Waikiki, up around Diamond Head and then out to Hawaii Kai. They then loop back running around Diamond Head again and ending in Kapiolani Park.

He’s way too healthy for his age…

Seriously this guy ran a full marathon in Crocs?

At least Minnie has decent shoes…

Your guess is as good as mine…

Its a Japanese tradition to eat soba when changing from the old year to the new year. Soba representing longevity (long noodles). Typically its eaten hot and soup based. As you get closer to the midnight the lines a popular soba restaurants get longer and longer. We decided to go early, around lunch, but we still had to stand in line for close to an hour at Sunaba in the Akasaka (砂場 赤坂店) district of Tokyo.  The soba there is so good.

BTW, Sunaba was the location of the heimlich vacuum maneuver in movie Tampopo with a young Ken Watanabe.

After lunch we walked down the street to Akasaka Sacas on the grounds of TBS TV.  On the corner is an old house (occupied by an old lady) – looks like it was build before the war.  Wonder how much they offered her to move when they build Akasaka Sacas several years ago?  There were some groupies waiting in front – maybe SMAP?

On the grounds of Sacas is an outdoor skating rink, looks like they were prepping for a New Years Eve TV show.