Hakone

Last week we made a short trip to Hakone, a mountain area about an hour and a half by train West of Tokyo. In fall, it attracts lots of visitors like ourselves to admire the brightly coloured autumnal trees. Using the Hakone Freepass we were able to easily travel to and through the area using trains, buses, ferries, ropeways and cablecars.

Mount Fuji as seen from the ferry while crossing Lake Ashi.

At night we stayed at a traditional japanese hotel with private hot spring baths. We had a bathtub both inside and outside our room.

The next day we took a ropeway up to Owakudani, where we ate pitch black eggs boiled in the hot sulfuric volcano water. Each egg you eat is said to prolong your life by 7 years; I ate three.

The bright reds and yellows that the Japanese maple leaves turn are indeed spectacular.
Hakone is also the home of many modern art museums. We chose to visit the Hakone Open Air Museum, which features many sculptures by the likes of Henry Moore, Picasso and Jean DuBuffet (above).

100% Design Tokyo

Today I visited the 100% Design Tokyo trade show, the main event of Tokyo Designer's week 2007. The show is organised in collaboration with the 100% Design trade show in London and the Design Association. Hence a lot of the designs on display here were from European origin, although there was plenty from Japanese designers and manufacturers. I spent about 2 hours at the show, and here are a few things that caught my attention.

The roller buggy by Valentin Vodev of pixstudio. This child carriage transforms into a scooter for added speed and fun. The front wheels turn when you lean sideways. Looks like fun even without a child on board! Information: pixstudio.net.

The write-bulb by Japanese studio sample case. The light is turned on by drawing a coil (or any other line) between two contact points with a regular pencil. The light is switched off by erasing the line! Information: tel. +81(0)90-3629-9429, or samplecase-j1@nifty.com.
The heatwave by Jaga and Joris Laarman. This modular neo-rococo central heating radiator is made from polyconcrete and is truly impressive in real life. It has already been added to the collection of several modern art museums in the Netherlands and France. Information: theradiatorfactory.com, jorislaarman.com.

My favourite object at the show was this zuse toaster by Inseq design. The compact design of the object is great in itself: the bread is inserted from the top and is toasted as it travels through the toaster, to be caught by a minimal metal wire tray. On top of that, it burns a random design from a selection of images kept in a memory chip inside the toaster. Information: inseq.net.

A day at the Sumo

Last week Monday we attended the sumo tournament at the Kokugikan, the sumo arena in Tokyo. It was the 9th day of the two-week tournament held each year in September.
The Kokugikan arena around noon. The bouts start from 9am, but most of the crowd arrives at 2:30pm when the professionals take the stage.

Referees are barefoot during the lower-ranked bouts.

The ritual foot stomping is said to increase strength and squash bad spirits.

The initial lunge.

One of the few short ceremonies held before the top ranking wrestlers start their bouts.

Companies that sponsor the prize money for this bout are allowed to advertise on these banners before the bout starts.

Many bouts are over in a matter of seconds, but in this one the two wrestlers were locked in a battle that seemed to last for minutes.

The final bout of the day followed by the "bow dance" closing ceremony.

Koenji Awaodori dance festival

The summer festivals continue and this weekend we visited the Awaodori dance festival in Koenji, Tokyo. According to the official website it is the second largest Awaodori festival in the country, at which a staggering 12,000 dancers perform on two evenings. As expected, there were large crowds, but it wasn't too difficult to find a good spot to view the parade from, and the atmosphere was fantastic.





Saving the best for last:

Matsuri in Asagaya

This weekend we visited a street festival in Asagaya. Asagaya has a quite long glass-covered shopping street that takes a good 10 minutes to traverse on a normal day. As you can see by the crowd below, this was no normal day! The entire length of the street was heavily decorated with lanterns, banners and large paper mache cartoon figures. There were a handful of videogame characters, but they were relatively poorly made compared to this pink bundle of joy.

This is a very common sight at a matsuri. Using a paper "net", kids try to scoop goldfish from a large tank to take home. The paper easily rips when wet, so they must continue to try using the edges of the paper.

Finally! I got to see some stag- and rhino beetles on sale. These wrestling beasts are summer pets for Japanese kids. Admittedly it's difficult to see, but there's a big one feeding at the front, just to the left of the metal ring.

Also on sale were this singing Long-horned Grasshopper, hermit crabs, white salamanders, turtles and crickets.

Of course no street festival is complete without excessive amounts of food. Here scallops and squid-on-a-stick are being sold.

Happy Mascots in Kawagoe

Onions are usually associated with making people cry, but these can only put a smile on your face.

Local delicacy the sweet potato is more likely to scare off tourists with that grumpy face. Still, if you're ever in Kawagoe, I can recommend you try the sweet potato ice cream. It's purple and tasty.

These mochi-making mascots look none too happy. Presumably it becomes less fun if you have to do it all year round.

The one hundred million yen (ichi oku yen) note exists, is made of dried squid, edible, and will set you back only 350yen.

Usually in Japan you find people in bright coloured clothing either handing out tissues or shouting at passers-by outside mobile phone shops in order to promote their wares. Here, a trio of superhero ninja monkeys serve the same purpose.

I just love this antique. The frog is asking the rhino beetle car to let the turtle and caterpillar cross the road. Crawl safely.

Kawagoe, "Little Edo"

On Sunday we made a day trip to Kawagoe, a small city about 40 minutes by train from Ikebukuro station in Tokyo. It's known as "Little Edo" for its many Edo-period (1603-1898) buildings that remain there. The main attractions include the Tokino Kane (Bell Tower), and a street lined with black clay-walled stores known as Kurazukuri. We visited one of them which now acts as a museum (entry 100yen) and which used to be a tabacco wholesaler's shop. Elsewhere in town there are some large temples, an utterly cute candy-store alley, several museums, and part of the former castle (below).
One of the temples, known as the Kitain, has 538 stone statues on its grounds. The panorama below shows most of them, click on the image for a closer view.
On the last visitor bus through the street with the clay-walled stores I made the video below, which gives a good impression of the street. Highly recommended for a quick and easy day trip from Tokyo.


Links: Koedo Kawagoe Tourist Association (English pages)
Next post: Happy Mascots spotted in Kawagoe!