On my last trip to Kyoto I went to a horse meat speciality restaurant called Umayarou.
Umayarou is near Kiyomachi-dori; a popular street full of restaurants, bars and clubs. The restaurant name: 馬野郎 (うまやろう / Umayarou) starts with the kanji 馬, which means horse, this makes it easy to spot it as a horse meat specialist.
I had a free afternoon so decided to take walk around Asakusa. This historic district of Tokyo is one of my favourite spots.
The area is well known as the home of Senso-ji. One of the most famous temples in Tokyo. The entrace to Senso-ji; known as Kaminari-mon gate, has a giant lantern. It’s a popular photo spot. Look to the left of Asakusa station on the below map. You can find a big picture of Kaminari-mon gate on a previous blog post.
It’s December 1st and it was a lovely sunny warm but fresh 16 degrees in Tokyo. I decided to head out for a walk around Tokyo Tower. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while and it was really a beautiful day out.
I started from Hamamatsucho (浜松町) just 15 minutes walk to the East of Tokyo Tower. While Tokyo Tower is a major tourist attraction the surrounding area is to a certain extent a business district. Due to that I was lucky enough to find a few really nice independent coffee shops that were quite quiet due to it being a Saturday.
Tokyo is a beautifully colourful place.
I really appreciate good design in life. When people, businesses and local authorities make an effort. A lot of elements come together to make a place enjoyable. The shape of the buildings, the colours, the cleanliness, the ease of getting around.
Life can be busy, it can get tiring commuting around, rushing to work, rushing to meet people. Everything is a better when the places we go feature interesting and beautiful design.
One of my genuine beliefs is it shouldn’t just be about minimising costs and maximising profits, it should be about making the world a better place.
Earlier in January I went on a visit to Nezu Shrine (根津神社) in Tokyo. This Shrine is famous for the Tori – lined pathways.
I took some photos, I hope you enjoy. It’s a lovely spot to have a walk around in.
Today, something a bit different – a movie recommendation!
君の名は (kimi no na wa) or in English – “Your Name” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5311514/
It’s anime, but don’t let that put you off, this is a story about people – friendship, family, love etc. – no monsters!
For my second photo walk around Kyoto in January I took a stroll around Kawaramachi and Pontocho areas. Just across the river from Gion; the subject of my last Kyoto post.
I finally decided to visit a maid cafe!
At the risk of destroying my masculine image I’ll start by openly admitting I love cute things. So I was always interested to check out a maid cafe.
It’s 2018 and I decided to start the first week of the year with a ‘photo-walk’ around Gion in Kyoto.
Gion is the traditional district of Kyoto, think old style restaurants, souvenirs shops etc.
Today, I went to have a look at the recently opened railway museum in Kyoto. They have 53 historic train cars. I skipped the steam engines; which look quite similar to European models, and focused on the early diesels and electrics.
I don’t know a lot about trains, so I’ll list the model numbers in case you’d like to find out more about any of them.
I’m back in Japan ! 🙂
But let’s rewind a bit, a couple of weeks ago I caught an advertisement for a Japanese TV show on Netflix, “Kantaro The Sweet Tooth Salaryman”.
This year the Barbican centre ran an exhibition; ‘The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945’.
I was impressed by the creative layout, a large gallery was used, in the centre, a life-sized house and garden were installed. This was surrounded by individual galleries telling the story of evolving design in the post-war decades.
What better way to celebrate the economical use of space and thoughtful design present in Japanese homes than to make it a central theme of your exhibition.
A huge thank you to fellow WordPress blogger; bluchikenninja, who’s blog introduced me to the wonderful ‘bullet journal’ system – http://bulletjournal.com/
I love my notepads, but they are normally a mess. Bullet Journal provides a basic system to structure your notebooks for planning, journaling, reference etc.
I’ve had three days in Taipei. I’m feeling good about this city; it has positive vibe. Today I went for a walk along Dihau Street. It’s a fairly traditional area with a lot of shops selling things like tea and herbal medicine.
There are some vibrant, busy scenes. But even in amongst those you can catch people taking a rest from the hot afternoon sun. Check out the guy in the truck cab.
I snapped a few nice shots around Tokyo in the last few days. I spotted another sweet classic parked up in Harajuku. This is a Ford Ranchero, it’s the first time I saw one in real life, I think it’s the slightly less popular competitor to the El Camino. This one looks awesome in gloss black.
Today was a chill day. I didn’t have any exercise scheduled. My main plan was to study some Japanese and graphic design and to head over to Asakusa and maybe take a few photos.
To be honest, the day was a bit of a fail, I couldn’t concentrate at all and it was way too hot to walk around taking photos for a long time.
However, I did take a few shots in Asakusa. The area is famous for Sensoji 浅草寺 – it’s a temple complex that many people visit. There are a lot of shops selling traditional japanese products. There are also a lot of traditional restaurants.
The highlight of the day was a classic jeep spotted in Sendagaya (千駄ヶ谷), Tokyo (東京）
I saw this on the way from the Tokyo Metropolitan Gym to Omotesando. The metropolitan gym has a training room, pool and finess studio available for public use for 600 yen per session. It’s great for visitors who don’t want the hassle of a membership.
My last three months – suits, ironing, americanos, the client office, ms excel, paper, meetings, timetables, stress relief beer, stress relief chocolate and escapism netflix.
But I finished up last Friday in London, it’s Thursday now and I’m sitting in Starbucks Omotesando in Tokyo.
My blog name may sound strange in English. The reason is it comes from Japanese. It has a special significance to me which involves an ex girlfriend, travel across the world and around one hundred and thirty hours of TV.
The Japanese Kanji for hakka no togame is 白霞罸.
Clean, shiny steel and birdsong soft and sweet. A place full of people, some fast asleep, where could I be?
Prepared like art, with heart,
Eaten with care, flavours rare,
Japanese food is really that good,
Cooking and dining are national pastimes,
Ramen is a passion and,
Sushi a fashion,
That powers Tokyo life.
bright orange and blue
just a small shelter it’s true
but I still love you
hakkanotogame