NEWS OF TRAVEL JAPAN

The 21st Century Museum Of Contemporary Art. Kanazawa is very popular since its opening. On August 13 this summer, on visiting there I saw several hundred visitors with foreign travelers waiting for the opening time of the museum. Many guidebooks on traveling in Kanazawa recommend travelers to visit there. The 21st Century Museum Of Contemporary Art. Kanazawa is one of the popular sight-seeing spots in Kanazawa beyond the category of a museum. The birth of the museum The museum was built in 2004 in the center of Kanazawa , near Kenroku Park . It was founded by the strong thoughts of the then mayor, Mr. Yamade. He thought that he wanted to build not only a new-type of museum different from preexisting museums of appreciating pictures or statues, but also a museum that Kanazawa citizens could enjoy during their daily lives. At first He chose a contemporary art museum. Secondly, he chose a unique design like a UFO vessel. The structure is white and has a large flat circle form, ro...

There is an old story in Japan as follows; “A shinto priest in the Kyushu region (which is a big island in the west next to the Honshu Island of Japan) came to the shore at Takasago in Hyogo Prefecture. The time was in spring, the shore had a beautiful group of Japanese pine trees. He heard the sound of a distant temple bell. An aged married couple came there and they began to sweep and clean around the roots of the pine trees. (The priest wondered why they did this.) The aged man said to him quoting from the prologue of the anthology of Japanese poems of the old and current times, “Kokin-wakasyu”; “the pines in Takasago and pines in Sumiyoshi (in Osaka Prefecture) are called the pines going on living with each other, “aioi-no-matsu”. He told the priest about a folklore that those were married couples even far away from each other, and it explained the eternity and the intimacy between the aged couples. All living things, furthermore, all in nature let their hearts get close to th...

Pearls which shines deeply and mysteriously and are globe-shaped, which are different from other stone jewelry, attract people, especially women. A natural pearl is made by a pearl oyster, but a pearl oyster which produces a pearl is very rare with the probability of one in every thousand pearl oysters. So if the method of the man-made pearl production wasn’t invented in Japan, people who can wear them around their necks would be limited. The man who invented the method of the man-made pearl production and the founder of Mikimoto Campany was Kokichi Mikimoto. Mikimoto Pearl Island is in the Toba Harbor nearby the shore of Toba, we can go there across the bridge between the island and the entrance building on the shore. On the island the statue of Kokichi stands looking in a southerly direction, probably to his home region which he loved . His standing shape holding a long cane in his right hand is gallant and cool with a long gown, a scarf and a hat, but his face is very a...