Meiji Shrine

Tokyo Day 2: Starting with a shrine and ending with curry

Meiji Shrine

We started the day by walking through Omotesando to the Meiji Shrine, and ended the day with spicy cuttle fish fried chicken curry.

It was another day experiencing utopian, not dystopian, Tokyo; the overly crowded, polluted, nutty, techno-futuristic monstrosity of my imagination failed again to show up. Instead in its place was a beautifully spotless, fluid, blue and green paradise.

Most notable sights of the day were young Japanese waiting in long, all-day-lines for Eggs N' Things of Hawaii and Garrett Popcorn of Chicago, Japanese seniors spending hours sitting on the sidewalks painting the scenes of mid-day Omotesando, and the wedding processions, sake barrels, and perfectly trimmed trees of Meiji Temple.

Some photos below. Full gallery HERE.

Building as art

Central, Hong Kong.

Beautiful

Shenzhen's future pebble farmscrapers

Beautiful

From io9:

The Chinese city of Shenzhen recently commissioned the French firm Vincent Callebaut Architects to come up with an innovative and sustainable building solution for the growing metropolis. The result is this: The Shenzhen Asian Cairn Farmscraper project, an initiative consisting of six mix-used towers structured like a pile of rocks. Aside from being absolutely gorgeous, the buildings will provide space for residents, offices, shops, recreation — and as the name would imply, its own food.

China is often accused of being environmentally irresponsible, and for good reason. But it's a claim that may not stand the test of time. With an eye firmly planted on the future, the city of Shenzhen is actively responding to the demands of its rising population, unchecked urban sprawl, and rising CO2 emissions.

I would normally equate words like 'vaporware' and 'never-gonna-happen' to a project like this but I've seen too many crazy structures actually go forward and be built in this city, so never say never.

Cool

Chinese buildings that look like alien spaceships

Gizmodo wrote up a list of 18 21st century buildings around the world they thought looked like alien spaceships. My first thought was that at least one of the buildings would be in China, and that building would be The National Theater in Beijing. To my surprise, five out of the 18 buildings listed were in China. Those five were:

The National Theater, Beijing

"Mobile "Art" Exhibition Pavilion, Hong Kong

The Beijing National Stadium ("Bird's Nest"), Beijing

The Guangzhou Opera House, Guangzhou

Galaxy Soho, Beijing

I then looked through the comments section and found some other Chinese buildings recommended for this list (though some were not from the 21st century), and was surprised to see that some of them were right here in Shenzhen. The readers' choices that included Chinese buildings were:

The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, Hong Kong

Shenzhen Visitor's Center, Shenzhen

Multi-Purpose Cultural Center, Shenzhen

UK Pavilion at Shanghai Expo, Shanghai

CCTV Building, Beijing

So what would I add to the above list based on my personal experience here in China? I'd add the following:

Shenzhen Poly Theater, Shenzhen

Zifeng Plaza, Nanjing

Water Cube, Beijing

Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3, Beijing

Beijing South Railway Station, Beijing

Shanghai Tower, Shanghai (still under construction)

Coming to life

Shanghai's Pudong district, as photographed from New Heights Restaurant on The Bund at nightfall and night.

Statues in a garden of a preserved historical house.

South Korea Day 1: Seoul City Tour Bus

Statues in a garden of a preserved historical house.

My friend had to work, so my other friend and I took the Seoul City Tour Bus. Buy one ticket and you can hop on and off as many times as you want during the day, with a new bus coming every thirty minutes. We took the downtown tour bus route and stopped at the new City Hall, Seoul Tower, and a large shopping area. We finished up the day by eating some kimchi fried rice and tofu soup and catching up on some work at Tom and Tom's Coffee. Even at 9 pm on a Friday night, there were many university students at the coffee cafe studying. Apparently midterms in only two weeks away.