NEWS OF TRAVEL JAPAN

In Kanazawa there is an architecture which bridges the Buddhist spirit of Japan to the world. It is Daisetsu Suzuki Museum. The designer of this museum is Yoshio Taniguchi, who is a famous Japanese designer, and one of his works is the new museum of MoMA in New York. He was born in Kanazawa and learned architectural design in Harvard Graduate University. He has sensitivity which was brewed in Kanazawa, which includes the air of samurai, artistic craft work, good food, Buddhism and eastern philosophy, and western rationality learned in New York. Then Daisetsu Suzuki Museum, which was inspired by Zen Philosophy of Daisetsu Suzuki, was built by the geometric architectural method. The design is simple with only straight lines and planes by concrete, iron and stones, but implies the essences of historical Japanese architecture. It may be that Daisuke Suzuki Museum is the indicator of the relativity and the continuity between the two senses of beauty of western people and Japanese...

It may be that Kobe city in Hyogo prefecture is a food base which has been supplying a lot of new foods which come from foreign countries to Japanese people. Pizza, which was born in Italy, landed of The Kobe Port by foreign sailors. The first Lemon Soda was sold in Kobe. These were distributed from foreign countries to Japan, and these were remade so as that Japanese people would love them. On the other hand, canned coffee for the first time in the world was born in Kobe. Moreover, Kobe-beef-steak grilled on a heated iron plate in front of guests was invented in Kobe in order to enjoy freshly grilled beef. The reason that Kobe became such a base of new foods was that Kobe was the gateway of foreign culinary delights and there have been Japanese people with gastronomic desires behind Kobe. Aside from being the birth place of the first bread in Japan, Kobe is traditionally one of the cities which has various bakeries. Especially, typically German bread is the core of the Kobe b...

Happy new year to you! “Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu”. Well, this phrase is a convenient common greeting at the beginning of a new year in Japan, but it’s difficult to translate it into English including the nuance. It implies a kind of hope that the person saying it wants to keep an “adequate” relationship with somebody.  At the beginning of a new year for celebration, a lot of Japanese people visit shrines (or temples rarely), which are adorned with new-year iconic decorations of celebrating. This time, let’s go to visit Nishinomiya Shrine in Nishinomiya city, Hyogo Prefecture, which is between Osaka and Kobe. It enshrines Okuni-no-mikoto, who is worshipped as the god of prosperity. Nishinomiya Shrine It’s three o’clock in the afternoon of January 1. Many people are already gathering outside of the shrine. As the first shrine visit of a new year, “hatsu-mode”, begins at the stroke of midnight and a lot of people celebrate new year at shrines, so that’s a matter of ...