Nozawaonsen Ski Resort

Japan is quite well-know for its superb quality of powder snow for skiers and snowboarders. Actually this is my first time encountered real winter and lots of snow, so other than first time snowboarding, I really enjoy the snow.

I did some research about where to go snowboard, not so far from Tokyo but not so close that the place gonna be crowded in New year's holidays. There are many mountains to go in Nagano prefecture, few hours train ride from Tokyo.

Nozawaonsen village or Nozawaonsen-mura is quite difficult to reach, honestly, but it was worth the trip. It is a small and authentic village, not tourists' atmosphere I mean, hot water running through the village so that's where its name came from.

* iPhone5s and filters

Kumamoto

Baby, it’s cold outside.

It’s getting colder and colder here in Tokyo. The autumn leaves have all long gone by now. Yet, I still have a lot to write about my first Autumn in Japan. My last entry was all about Autumn leaves, viewing Momiji, the maple leaves, and Koyou, Ginko leaves, changed their colours are quite impressive.

When Autumn was about to be gone in the end of November, I was lucky enough to be invited to join the Kumamoto Artpolis event in Kumamoto with my earlier college professor and 5th year students from Bangkok. While in Kumamoto, I visited places, saw things, and captured some photos, as usual.

Let’s start with the first day, we walked to Kumamoto castle, so the city isn’t so big in my opinion, the weather was nice, sunny and chilled. Actually all the original buildings were demolished during the war or something in the past. The leftovers were only some foundations and some drawings of the castle for the government to re-build it all over. What I interested here are the stone wall around the castle, they were cut and put up in a very unique angled, I read some information but already forgotten the name of the method. The stone wall’s slope is getting very slope at the top, to protect the castle from any intruders. Inside the main hall, which has been re-build in whole, there is an exhibition showing the construction of the building and also the recreation of the building purpose’s atmosphere.

I personally think that Kumamoto is a nice place to visit, as for the architectures’ admirer, there were some splendid things to see. Kumamoto station Shiragawa (East) gate, stood Ryue Nishizawa-san’s Public arcade shed which is now only 1 phase constructed, and at the West gate, Sato Mitsuhiko-san’s Public bus stop shelter. In the city, Kazuo Shinohara-san’s Police station also stood very elegantly both during day and night time. I only had a chance to see the building in the night because our schedule there was kind of busy and I couldn’t get up in the early morning to go. Shame on me. In the night time, you can see the structure of it very obviously, but during daytime, according to the search engine’s photo, the facade glass are all reflective kind that you can’t see anything inside it.

The Artpolis held the architectural tour another city in the area of Kumamoto prefecture by bus. We visited Yatsushiro, Toyo Ito-san’s earlier works; Yatsushiro Fire station, Yatsushiro Municipal Museum. These two architecture were completed more than 20 years ago, yet we can still feel how contemporary they are now.

Mostly iPhone5s and lots of filters :P

Autumn

OLYMPUS 35 DC

Summer Fireworks

Even though the leaves have already changed colour and started to fall since it is Autumn now, I still love to share the memory of Japanese fireworks back in Summer.

In Tokyo, the weather was getting hotter from June through August, the peak was in August. Fireworks festival began along with the Summer period. Some were representing, "Hey, it's Summer!", some were "Summer is ending now."

Japanese people are very sensitive to the change of season. There are seasonal foods, fruits, drinks, special dishes, activities, clothes, ceremonies, and the endless list in my opinion. I've learnt in college that maybe it was the fact that they are living on an island where natural disasters are so common to their daily life, for example, earthquake.

This year, I was happened to be just in time for a firework in Nikko. It wasn't a huge festival compared to one I've seen in Tokyo. In Tokyo, most of the festival were big and super crowded, after the last shooting firework, people were scrambled for a train back home. But in Nikko, people seems like they walked from their home to attend the festival. The atmosphere was much more cosy, and yet fun.

Hotel Okura Tokyo

When in summer, I went to visit Hotel Okura Tokyo, one of the iconic building since the last Tokyo Olympics back in 1964, though it was completed two years earlier. I read the article in Monocle magazine months ago about the renovation of this gorgeous building for the sake of the coming up Oympics 2020.

The Okura Tokyo is an architecture combining Japanese architects, folk artists, and potter, altogether, reflected Japanese traditional space, colours, atmosphere, yet including the sense of modernisation, an attempt to rise after the devastation of World War.

According to what I read from the magazine, this incredibly stunning space will be developed into the 38-storey high glass hotel building, 550 rooms. The renovation plan will be done by 2019, in time for the Rugby World Cup and also Olympics.

When I entered the hotel, I went in the wrong entrance so I didn't find the lobby at first. Anyway, entering the lobby from whichever direction still made me impressed. The space of the lobby, for me, wasn't so public, its has a private atmosphere, subtle natural light coming through 'Washi' on the window, Japanese paper used to make sliding screen/door. For the artificial light, most of them came form the lovely unique ceiling lamps. It was a little bit dark but enough for those activities occur in the lobby, I think.
I had a conversation with a concierge, I asked whether I can take a photo in there or not, and she told me to please take a stair up to the mezzanine too, and please enjoy the space. I asked her about the renovation plan, and she didn't seem to worry and told me that the developer are trying their best to keep the best of the hotel also.