My last day in Tokyo and I realised I’d almost forgotten about this place! I would have hated myself if I’d missed it because not only is 21_21 Design Sight an incredibly beautiful building, but the exhibition that’s currently running, KOME The Art of Rice, is truly one of the …
Tokyo 2014
What a day, what a park. Seemed as if everyone was out in the spring sunshine today. I took advantage of the good weather, got myself a pain au chocolate, tea and a tub of yoghurt and did breakfast under a cherry blossom tree…the Sakura are looking magnificent at Gyoen. …
Tadao Ando is a legendary Japanese architect, someone Lateral Paul has spoken to me about for years, literally. So to see the International Children’s Library (and thanks to Shingo for taking me there) was a major design and creative moment for me. Located within Ueno Park in Tokyo, the International …
If you’re going to do a spot of serious shopping, parting with your precious plastic to score top end brands you feel you cannot live without, then do it properly and lose yourself somewhere where your surroundings are so beautiful that you won’t feel the pain. These places exist in …
Our good friend Shingo took me to see breathtaking buildings today, designed by some of Japan’s foremost architects. St Mary’s Cathedral in Sekiguchi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo (Metro stop is Edogawabashi), was our first stop, and it’s all I expected- spectacular. Before it was flattened in a WWll air raid in 1945, …
I walked up the steps like Scarlett did in Lost in Translation. The Meiji Shrine in Shibuya, the largest of the Tokyo Shinto shrines, circa 1921, is made of cypress and copper and surrounded by 175 hectares of evergreen forest – that’s about 120,000 trees – and the imposing torii …
Not far from the Imperial Palace is an area called Iidebashi that’s nicely off the beaten tourist track but very cool if you’re up for wandering some of the older side streets and narrow cobbled lanes of Tokyo. It’s an upmarket area with small, chic low rise apartment buildings neatly …
As things turned out yesterday evening, I got my very own private tour of Shinjuku & Kabukicho when a few sloppy tourists didn’t pitch for the walkabout. It was just me and my guide Mr. Mamoru Shinjuku putting foot to pavement in yet another vast Tokyo district. Let’s begin with …
The only bitch thing about living on the tip of Africa is that foreign lands tend to be a very long haul away, unless of course you’re swanning off in your private jet or sashaying onto your flatbed in business class. After 2 days of flying, I eventually got to …