One of the most surprising works of art at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa is a “fake” swimming pool. The pool has just 10 cm of water over a glass surface, it looks like a normal swimming pool until you realize that it is hollow and you can go inside and walk under the water! It has been built in a Japanese museum, but it is an original idea by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich.
The sushi served in the Jiro restaurant in Ginza is considered the best in the world; it was the first sushi restaurant to receive 3 Michelin stars! Unfortunately I have never been there; you have to make a reservation (there is only place for 10 people) and a normal meal costs between 30,000 and 40,000 yen (300-400 euro / 400-500 dollars).
Jiro Ono is 85 years old but he is still the restaurant chef. He has dedicated all his life to sushi and now his biggest concern is that his son can continue the tradition maintaining the same level of mastery. The documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi portrays the lifestyle of Jiro and his son, considered the best sushi cooks in the world. This is the documentary trailer, highly recommended!:
I am fascinated by their level of dedication to sushi
Nestlé Japan usually releases different Kit Kat varieties depending on the year season. My favorite one is the green tea Kit Kat.
Another marketing strategy is to sell certain varieties of Kit Kat only in some provinces. This way when people travel around Japan, they notice the specific varieties of the regions and even buy them as a present-souvenir for friends back home. This is the map of the different kinds of Kit Kat around Japan:
It looks like this other hamburger vending machine but it is a lot more “manual” and has several use modes. It’s something that can’t be explained, you have to watch the video:
Some months ago a girl from Yokohama was so kind to send me a Polaroid ONE600 as a present, so that’s how my “analogization” process continued; a process that mysterious forces started in order to fight against my digital life. The first trip of my Polaroid was to the Ise shrine, where it took its first picture:
I love the colors it captures, the soft contrast and the feeling of having a physical photo in your hands seconds after taking the photo. The problem is that no more Polaroid films are being produced, it seems like Sumitomo bought the patents and has kept them in a forgotten drawer somewhere. My friend, Sara, still had some films that she bought some years ago and kept them in a fridge (it seems it is the best way to preserve films during long periods of time). A couple of photos turned out bad, most likely because the chemical components had “expired”, but the rest turned out pretty well:
This one with greener colors was taken with Sara’s SX-70, a much older Polaroid.
Every year the Japanese people choose one kanji character that represents the society’s sentiment regarding the year that is coming to an end. The most voted character this year has been 絆 (kizuna, きずな), which means “bonds”, normally used when talking about the bonds and collaboration among people, friends, family… In this case it has been chosen to represent how united the Japanese people and the whole world have been when facing what happened 9 months ago in Tohoku.
Once the kanji of the year is chosen it is publicly announced by writing it in Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto.
My friend CaDs arrived to Japan in December 2010. After one year living in Tokyo he gives us this present, a video with some of the wonderful pictures that he took during his first year in Japan:
