Still in Covid Mess ― 2022/08/05
Aging World ― 2018/01/24
Airing ― 2016/05/26
The roof of a dome stadium was partly open today. It looks comfortable taking in fresh air (with a quite bit of PM2.5 dust).
Floating Car ― 2013/02/01
While I was taking a walk, I photographed tree pruning in a park.
After I got home I found the car was floating. ..
Did I happen to photograph something supernatural?
Frogs in a Construction Site ― 2012/06/13
As You Like It ― 2012/03/16
The city hall has had this walking path redone. The path used to be a natural-looking (it is actually artificially made—how could you find a natural footpath on a reclaimed land?) unpaved footpath. And now, it has three surfaces: yellow asphalt, stone-pavement, and existed well-draining, well-treaded-down (artificial) earth, to entertain your feet. If you prefer, a mushier, wetland-like surface is also available.
Like many other cities in this country, Fukuoka is very much in debt (1.7 million yen per a citizen).
How long the city hall wants to spend our tax money (or our debt) on this kind of projects? …Personally I don’t need such an entertaining pavement. I just wish bin bags became free (I was about to forget to tell you. Unless you put your rubbish in "official" bin bags that cost 450 yen for 10 bags, binmen will not take your rubbish away)!
Built with Guts! ― 2011/12/19
The other day I visited a Western-style building built in 1910, less than 50 years after the end of Edo era during which Japan closed its door to foreign countries.
Despite that, this building looks very “west (the French-Renaissance style, according to the guide there)”,
using imported materials
and having high ceilings, and western-style bathrooms (How did people used this then? there was no boiler or water pipes at the time. The water supply system in Fukuoka began working in 1923!) .
Despite the somewhat frightening western looks (probably only for me), the interior felt somewhat Japanese-friendly. For example, the doorknobs were set at much lower position in proportion with the size of the doors,
and there was even a Japanese-style bath room which was much bigger than the one in my home.
As listening to the gentleman guiding the building as a volunteer, I learnt the building was in fact designed by a local engineer who didn’t study abroad. He must have studied hard through books and other learning materials without knowing how it would “feel” the “real” Western buildings, and designed this (and other culturally important buildings in this area) only with knowledge and guts.
This has nothing to do with this building, but having heard about the architect, I felt somehow encouraged to try to do translation between English and Japanese. If a Meiji person could do this job only with knowledge and guts and without knowing the real thing, maybe I don’t have to be ashamed of my “desk-top English”, getting nice marks at examinations but useless at supermarkets—as Antonio Inoki said “Guts can make anything happen!“(translated by me). …Sorry, I seem to have made a huge jump in logic, as usual.
Under the Motorway ― 2010/11/24
But, I haven't seen anyone relax here...the surface is too hard to sit on?
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