Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium (美ら海水族館)
Okinawa(沖縄), known as the “Japan Hawaii”, is the Southernmost Province of Japan and it consists of thousands of island. Its capital, the Naha, is located at the largest island of Okinawa Province, the Okinawa Island. With beautiful coastal lines and natural scenes, nice beaches, good diving sites, the antique architecture and numerous resort hotels along the beaches, the Okinawa is a famous place for local Japanese people as well as overseas tourists to spend their summer holidays. The summer in Okinawa is especially popular and the hotel prices in July to August could rise to all most 3 times higher than the low season.
I visited the Okinawa this July, and I was astonished by the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium.
This Aquarium is nothing to be compared all over the world and among all other aquariums, as it houses the largest fish in the world, the Whale Shark. There are 2 Whale Sharks inside the Aquarium and they are the only 2 raised inside an aquarium. If it is not this Aquarium, we could either see the Whale Shark in the National Geographic Channel, or go diving and try our luck in the uninhabited open sea.
The Whale Sharks, tremendous in size, but mild in nature as they are only fed on small organisms through filtrating the sea water. They have large square head and their large mouth always looks like smiling to us. Their fins are as tall as a person and their grey skin is covered by small white dots. What an amazing creatures! Through the thick glass wall I saw the two giants, I could hardly believe my eyes that I could watch them so closely and clearly. When watching them swimming elegantly inside the water, I felt so peaceful and forgot my own being. I thought that I was “flying” with them merrily inside the water. Haha!
The two lovely giants have lots of big and small friends around them, like the Manta Ray, the big Butterfly Fish, the Tuna, the Shark, etc. There are so much more to see in the Aquarium and one could spend a whole day there.
One more fascinating feature in the Aquarium which I would like mentioning is the “Ocean Blue Cafe“ there. The cafe is just a fast food shop and it sells pasta, hotdogs, softdrinks, etc. Visitors would need to find themselves for tables there. However, this lovely fast food shop is a “must visit” spot inside the Aquarium, as it is located right next to the huge apartment of the Whale Sharks. Not only all the tables there could have a good clear view over the Whale Sharks, some tables are set so close to the glass wall and it seems that we are dining under the water and the Whale Sharks and all the other giants are swimming over our heads. When I visited the Aquarium last month, I was lucky enough to find the best table and I just sat there watching the “giants” for hours and did not want to leave.
The best time to visit this Cafe would be around 3:00pm when it is also the feeding time for the Whale Sharks and all their friends, the whole Aquarium would get excited. Remember to go to this Cafe a bit earlier and find yourselve a nice table, I am sure that you don’t want to leave by watching the beautiful and lovely creatures.
note: a friend of mine is going to visit Okinawa next week. my friend, if you are reading this article, you would probably know that i write this for you.
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related post: Talk of Tokyo
Filed under travelling, japan, fun | Comments (14)Yayoi Kusama 草間彌生 - an artist obssessed with polka dots
“Pumpkin”, 1994 - 2005, Yayoi Kusama, Benesse Art Site Naoshima, Japan.
“One day when I was young, I was looking at the pattern of dots on the tablecloth in front of me and when I looked up, I saw more dots. Everything around me, the whole world, had been swallowed by dots.”
“If I hadn’t painted, I’d be dead” says Kusama.
Yayoi Kusama (1929 - ), a Japanese artist, who is famous of using polka dots in her art creations. Kusama has experienced hallucinations and severe obsessive thoughts since childhood, often of a suicidal nature. She claims that as a small child she suffered severe physical abuse by her mother. Today she is living, by choice, in a mental hospital in Tokyo, where she is still producing her art work. Her studio is a short distance from the hospital.
Kusama’s paintings, collages, sculptures, and environmental works all share an obsession with repetition, pattern, and accumulation: visions of nets, dots, and flowers that covered everything she saw. She likes using single sharp colour dots in black background or sharp background colour with black or white polka dots or patterns in her art work.
In the Benesse Art Site Naoshima in the Seto Island (直島) of Japan, Kusama has a famous piece of installation: a large yellow “Pumpkin”, her famous artistic icon, facing the pretty seashore of Seto Island. One may first find the vision of a large yellow pumpkin filled with black dots locating at the seashore a bit strange and awkward, but soon you would find that the new vision experience creates a feel of fun and sureal in the real world.
Kusama has a new project in the Hangaram Design Museum, Seoul, Korea for the “Snoopy Life Design: Happinessis the 55th Anniversary” Exhibition, where she has filled our beloved snoopy with her polka dots! Cool and funny! The Exhibition in the Hangaram Design Museum will last until 16 September this year, you may wish to pay the polka dotted snoopy a visit if you are dropping by Seoul.
Talk of Tokyo
Working. Dwelling. Playing. Relaxing. This quarter is a composite city, gathering together all of these functions. Offices, a hotel, park, art museums and other amenities are naturally anointed with high function, mutually interacting, inspiring and connecting, bringing something new into being. The synergy generated form such functional diversity emerges as the true face of this town. - project MidTown Tokyo
For past few years, when people visiting Tokyo, the “Roppongi Hills(六本木山, りぽんぎヒルズ)” was once the hippiest and trendiest place to go. However, since March this year, another new project has over taken the leading position and become the talk of the town in Tokyo.
The MidTown Tokyo, a new land mark in Tokyo, is a commercial project. Although the complex is commercial based where the focus is on the offices, shops, hotel and restaurants, this complex also brings in a touch of culture, art, nature and human interactions within the commercial environment.
The complex is formed by several high rise commercial and residential buildings, with a low rise shopping arcade. The transparent curtain walls and the vertical and horizontal sun shading fins, which are the signature of nowadays commercial buildings, carry with them clearly the environmental awareness and energy saving concepts.
What makes this commercial complex stands out from other similar projects is its consciousness of incorporating art, culture, nature and human interactions within the commercial environment, which brings in liviness and humanities.
There are 3 large parks surrounding the commercial complex: the Midtown Garden, the Grass Square and the Hinokicho Park, incorporating the natural environment in the highly artificial and functional commercial buildings. The parks also form a space for leisure human interactions, in addition to the commercial activities.
There are also 2 art museums built within the commercial complex: the Suntory Museum of Art and the 21-21 Design Sight. The interactions of art, culture and commercial activities mark the design concept of this project.
Being the hottest place of interest in Tokyo, with many popular shops and high quality restaurants, and with the 6 stars Ritz Charlton Tokyo, the MidTown Tokyo in no question is a “must go” location when travelling to Tokyo.
During 27 July to 26 Aug 2007, there is an interesting event, ”the Midtown Cafe on the Green” held in the MidTown Tokyo. People could enjoy the lovely outdoor atmosphere at the Midtown Garden, with beer, good food and live music. With all these, won’t you fancy a trip to Tokyo now?
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- MidTown Tokyo:
Roppongi Station on the Toei-Oedo Line; or
Roppongi Station on the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line.
Filed under travelling, architecture, japan, art | Comments (7)
sophie’s gallery
to the light house, okinawa, japan, july 07.
coastal, okinawa, japan, july 07.
Filed under japan, beauty, photography | Comments (4)Light & Form
Church of Light (光の教堂), Ando Tadao (安藤忠雄 あんど ただお), 1989.
4-3-50 Kita-Kasugaoka, Ibaraki- Shi, Osaka Perfecture.
Tel) 0726-27-0071
Ando Tadao is one of my favourite architects. His famous artistic creation, the Church of the Light, is a valuable gift to the world.
Born in Osaka, 13 Sept 1941, Ando entered into the profession of Architecture in 1969 after doing self-study and travelling around the world between 1962 and 1969. He has won lots of architectual awards since 1979. The lastest one is the 2002 Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects, by his “Chikatsu-Asuka Historical Museum, Osaka”.
Ando’s signature is his favourite material, the fair-faced concrete (清水混凝土, in Chinese). In his master pieces, one could easily appreciate the contrasts of solid and fluid, dark and light, raw and artifice, hard and soft, form and space, concrete and abstract. His work always blends well with the natural environment, instead of confrontation and alienation, which shows his love and respect to the nature.
The Church of the Light is one of Ando’s most famous creations. Applying his favourite material, the fair-faced concrete, Ando has created a clean, quiet and humble space for people to pray and meditate. Inside the Church, a cross-shaped opening is crafted on the plain concrete wall at the shrine to allow natural light from outside to come in. One may find it miracle or even sublime that when natural light comes into the Church, a “light cross” appears at the shrine, a cross that is made form light and form only. With the non-materialistic “light cross”, one would immediately understands the concept of divine and spiritual and be “enlightened”. I would say that, the Church of the Light, by itself, incorporates Ando’s philosophy and representation of beauty with sublime beauty.
“There is a role and function for beauty in our time. In Japan it may be translated into the concept of Uskuji, which also means a beautiful life, that is, how a person lives––his or her inner life. It’s something beyond appearance, or what only meets the eye. You can’t really say what is beautiful about a place, but the image of the place will remain vividly with you. People tend not to use this word beauty because it’s not intellectual—but there has to be an overlap between beauty and intellect.”
- Ando Tadao, in an interview by Architectual Record, talking about “beauty”.
Awards
- Annual Prize (Row House, Sumiyoshi), Architectural Institute of Japan, 1979
- Cultural Design Prize (Rokko Housing One and Two), Japan, 1983
- Alvar Aalto Medal, The Finnish Association of Architects, 1985
- Gold Medal of Architecture, French Academy of Architecture, 1989
- Carlsberg Architectural Prize, Denmark, 1992
- Japan Art Academy Prize, Japan, 1993
- Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1995
- Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, 1995
- Praemium Imperiale First “FRATE SOLE” Award in Architecture, Japan Art Association, 1996
- Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, 1997
- Royal Gold Medal, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), 1997
- AIA Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects (AIA), 2002
- House, stable, and mausoleum for former fashion designer Tom Ford , near Santa Fe, New Mexico
- Expansion for the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts
- Rebuilding the Kobe Kaisei Hospital in Nada Ward, Kobe, Japan
- New Tokyo Tower
In progress
Hanasakemee! (花咲けミー！)
If you find the lovely Hanasakemee quite interesting, here is some more for you.
The Hanasakemee, meaning “the flower fairy”, is a popular avatar character on the Yahoo! Japan. It is a design of the Polygons, a Japanese adv company. The character is popular for its cheerful colours, lovely apperance and rather relax and happy posture which would easily make one smile and release our stressful mind. One could easily find the products of Hanasakemee in Japan, or you could find some on their on-line shop.If you are thinking sending some e-cards to your beloved ones, just let the lovely Hanasakemee help you send your words and blessing!
Last but not least, let the lovely Hanasakemee wish you a good start of a new week! Work smart and be merry! 
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