Charms of visiting Nagoya

 The city of Nagoya, the capital of Aichi Prefecture, is located just between Tokyo and Osaka. Nagoya has a history as a homeland of "samurai" warriors who had fought to unify the country in the 16th and 17th centuries. In fact the first political leader in history, called a "shogun, " came from this region. Nagoya Castle and Main Palace are part of our influential heritage and show the achievement of outstanding samurai in those days.

Present Nagoya is the fourth largest city in Japan and the leading city of the manufacturing industries across the nation especially in the automobile, aviation and iron & steel industries. Over the years, this success is still greatly owed to the samurai rulers. These rulers encouraged skilled craftsmen to move to this region to promote the local industry while the central samurai government had failed to protect them due to strict economy policies.

Nagoya is a hub. Nowadays, many tourists from abroad see the advantages of visiting Nagoya. We have Chubu International Airport which is a 40-minute train ride to and from the center of Nagoya. The Shinkansen Bullet train from Nagoya station connects the city to many destinations nationwide. Furthermore, accommodation is more reasonable in regards to price compared to any other big tourist cities like Kyoto, Tokyo and Osaka. Please make the best use of your JR Pass to go back and forth. While you are in town, you will surely feel at home, too. It's easy to get around with public transportation such as the subway, buses, and private train lines.

For tourists visiting Nagoya for the first time, Nagoya Castle including Main Palace should be top of the list. You may also like to visit the popular temple in downtown Nagoya and also one of the three main great shrines in Japan. Aside from these, you may like to visit Toyota Museum of Industry and Technology, Tokugawa Art Museum or one or two Japanese gardens. Depending on how long you will be in Nagoya, I will customize the best tour for you accordingly so you can really get the most out of your stay.

Let's explore Nagoya! I hope you find the city charming!

Shioiri no Niwa (Garden with a tidal pond)

Let me introduce you to a unique type of Japanese garden in Shirotori.
We call it Shioiri Garden. “Shioiri” means “incoming tide" in English.
As you imagine from the word, “incoming tide,” the water in this pond depicts the incoming and outgoing ocean flows of Ise Bay.

The main concept of the garden is to portray the tides.
Ise Bay has been so prominent for people living in this region.

Please take a look at the wall in the background with white and grey checkered patterns.
It depicts some mountains in this central region such as Mt. Ontake or the Kiso Mountains.
With that being said, you can see how Shioiri Garden incorporates yet another expression of nature from our region.

It looks very modern though.
Modern technology has made this garden so unique, that it won the Urban Landscape prize from the city of Nagoya 24 years ago.

There are three points I’d like to introduce you to so that you will be able to enjoy the garden.

First, the water is controlled by a pump to reproduce the movement of Ise Bay's ocean tide.
If you stay here, you will be able to see the tide slowly coming in and out every 30 minutes.

Second, a winding titanium pipe hovering on the surface of the water, is eye catching.
This modern sculpture expresses the waves reaching shore after hitting rough rocks.

Lastly, there you can see some fountain spouts along the pipes.
They emit water to fill the pond like that of a tide gradually coming in, which is mesmerizing to watch.

Aside from these three elements, the garden designer also arranged a pair of rocks, one large and one small, in the pond to give you the image of the pair of sacred rocks at the shore near  Ise Grand Shrine in Mie Prefecture.

For some people, they are reluctant to call Shioiri Garden a Japanese garden.

However, considering Japanese strolling gardens were very much appreciated by daimyo; I’m sure they would have enjoyed a unique spot in which they could entertain their important guests.

I personally love the challenging idea of Shioiri Garden.
It is definitely a Japanese garden of this century.

It's Magic!

I have a very nice story to tell you.

It was on the way back to the cable car to get down from the top of the mountain where Gifu Castle stood when I realized that my hat was gone.

Where did I lose it?

Then I remembered I took it off and put it in a coat pocket, perhaps, on an open-door observatory floor. It was very windy. I might have dropped it there. My friends, Marta and Junko suggested that we should go back and get it.  But I was not sure where I dropped it and I didn't want to walk a bumpy and steep path to the castle tower again only to find nothing there.

It's time to say good-bye to my hat -----this must be destiny for my lovely hat to leave me and be replaced with a new one.  I almost gave up on my hat before I identified a very familiar item sitting on a bench ahead.

OMG! My Hat! 

See, I was wrong. Now I learned I must have dropped it before we reached the castle tower.
Marta and Junko were so excited with this. My hat showed up in front of us the moment we discussed its loss. Someone was kind enough to pick it up and leave it here on a bench..... in front of a small shrine along the path.

Everything is at the mercy of gods.

We were overjoyed with this and laughed a lot.
Welcome back, hat. Happy to see you again. I will keep you company until you get worn out.

So I gave a little prayer of gratitude in front of the small shrine with my hat on.
Isn’t it a nice story?

The World of the Woodblock Printer

 (Mr David Stones: from his website)

I made a trip with a group of my friends to the city of Okazaki in Aichi Prefecture by train and  then minibus to visit Mr. David Stones, an English woodblock printer, who first came to Japan 40 years ago and now lives in a very nice Japanese farm house with his Japanese wife on the outskirts of Okazaki.

Their house once had been abandoned. It has been renovated but still retains an abundant atmosphere of Japanese traditional style. 

Mr. Stones'swood-print works are very fine and delicate picturing mostly Japanese local views. 

He introduced us to the wonderful Japanese art of wood block prints and his wife invited us to a tranquil  moment with " Cha no Yu",  a Japanese tea ceremony  in her authentic tea house. Oh I loved the fascinating harp sound from the water basin near the entrance.

He pointed out the serious situation that Japanese people are losing craftsmanship to hand down to the next generation. In fact he has a problem in getting the  blocks of wood used for carving.
Wood block printers use thick woodblocks, called "han-gi" 版木 in Japanese,  of several kinds, depending on the purposes and  printing results. 

The Japanese art of wood prints, like ukiyo-e,  is unique in the way that artists carve many woodblocks for applying different pigments until they complete just one piece of art. 

  

 

 (image from Google)

Two sides of a woodblock should be framed tightly with supporting wood to prevent it from warping or shrinking over the years.  Otherwise  the artist can't  get  the exact result by way of  overlapping different woodblock onto just one sheet of Japanese paper called "washi".  If just one block should ever warp or shrink, it will mean the resulting artwork is imperfect. The quality of woodblocks is so important for a woodblock printer. 

It is so disappointing to know we are losing this craftsmanship. It seems that this is true of many other traditional art and crafts in Japan.  We should take this reality very seriously and figure out how to encourage young generations to keep our traditions alive.

Being blessed with the murmuring of the streams, birds singing and surrounding green hills, we had definitely a great time which we failed to enjoy in the every day hustle and bustle in the city.

Please go to his website to know more about his work from here

Cupnoodles Museum

 

Over this weekend while we were visiting Yokohama, 

I went to Cupnoodles Museum and made my only one in the world package. 

It was really fun. 

You design a cup, select your favorite soup and toppings. 

At the end , you put it into an air cushioned bag to make a special souvenir.

Everything was so cool there.

More than anything else,  I learned about ANDO Momofuku(1910-2007), 

who invented Chiken Ramen , the world's first instant ramen 

and later made  Cup Noodles which are now popular in many countries of the world.

His enthusiasm for creativity was really amazing and inspiring to me.

I liked his philosophy for a creative thinking.

I'd like to note his six key ideas about his creative process.

These are true not only to any inventors 

but also true to any one who is anxious to make his/her dream come true.

Six key ideas

1)Discover something completely new

2)Find hints in all sorts of places      

3)Nurturing an idea                       

4)Look at things from every angle    

5)Don't just go with the status quo  

6)Never give up                           

Steam Locomotive runs in the city

This morning I saw several helicopters hovering over the sky above the station area.
"What's going on?"  Noisy sound really bothered me. Then I noticed that today and tomorrow the city runs a steam locomotive C56-160 for the first time in 27 years as an trial event.
Nagoya City Mayor, Kawamura is aiming the operation of locomotive  in the city will bring about some good effects on the economy.  During the demonstration run for two days, they make some research  on  surrounding areas in terms of noises, shakes, smoke and soot.  If the results clear the regulation, we may add a new attraction spot in Nagoya.
 
 A C56-160 will run tomorrow three times. It's a 20-minute-ride to a terminal.  A total number of 1,200 seats for two days were booked by lot in advance.
Here some more information on schedule.(Japanese only)

You may be also interested in this article, too.

pictures from TV news program：

By the way,  you may see some reflections in a picture.  
This is not a Psychic photograph , I'm afraid　:<

Newly renovated Tokyo Station

This past October 1, Tokyo Station was open after the five-year renovation work.
The original station building was built in 1914 as an icon for a strong image of Tokyo as the capital of Japan. I read some book that the building took after greatly from Victorian Gothic Style by Tatsuno Kingo, the designer of the original building.
Unfortunately it was destroyed by air raid in WWII. After the war, the building was renovated but someway it was not just as the same as it used to be due to some construction regulations.
But it came back this time with an original design and somehow much powerful construction against earthquake.
Now the new Tokyo Station is not only a place for people to take trains but also a huge site of city with various purposes for people, such as to pass by and enjoy the museum, the undergroud shopping arcades and to stay and dine at Station Hotel.
I took this video from the 7th floor of the facing building across the road. 

Tokyo Station City

Do you remember "Travel Volunteer"?

Do you remember "Travel Volunteer"?  
Last year it was just six months after 3.11 Tohoku disaster when Katy Morrison  and Jamie Lafferty started traveling across Japan from north to south for 100 days. 

While traveling, they posted great articles and amazing pictures every day in their blog so as to say Japan is as beautiful as ever and this report helped a lot to support the recovery of tourism to Japan.

Today their blog  was released as a digital book titled "Smiles of Japan"  and it is just free.

Why don't you get this now and read it. No matter whether you are from Japan or from abroad you'll be fascinated with their experiences.

The book is available from URL below:

http://travelvolunteer.net/book01/pageview/pageview.html

Just let me add one thing. 

 It was such a rewarding experience for me that I accompanied them when they visited Aichi Prefecture in Oct. last year.

RI Convention in Bangkok

 I am back from being in a pretty bad shape (that was why I didn't show up in FB for these weeks) and also a trip to Bangkok. Glad that I came over the two extremes for the last three weeks.
Two purposes for the trip to Bangkok were to attend the Rotary International Convention from 6-9 and to get reunited with one of my dear friends for these 30 years.   I was scheduled to arrive on 4th but due to my condition, I changed my flight on 6th. My husband left for BKK two days earlier.
I had the splendid days to get in touch with the amazing history and culture of Thailand and the pleasant encounter with people, especially my new friend,  Fay who is extremely talented and charming young Thai woman.
Unfortunately Suchada was not able to arrive at BKK from LA while I was staying but we are to make it next time somehow in BKK or in Tokyo with our friends.
In the House of Friendship, I met Mike, an Alumini Relations Specialist from the Rotary Foundation and had a nice suggestion to get reunited with more friends who spent time together in Statesboro, GA in 1980.
I'll try to write him sometime soon to get more information.
Hey, 17 guys, just wait for my next report. Oh my, where on earth is Yuna now?   We miss her sooo much.