#suehirocho

[ramen-tokyo]

秋葉原ラーメン わいず（Wise）「得製つけ麺」

✔️Store name / Menu

✔️Nearest : 末広町駅

[bunsakashitajapanpaintings]

Window on the 2nd floor Pension Yumekukan (ペンション夢空館) 17-6 Suehirocho, Hakodate, Hokkaido 040-0053, Japan Gouache 6.1x8.3x2 Etude Butterfly Sketchbook Jun 7 2009

[luke-r-gillespie]

May 18 - Akihabara / Sanja Festival (Freeday) + Academic Reflection

Freewriting

Today I woke up at 9 (which is the best part about free days) before packing all of my clothes back into my suitcase to send off to Kyoto. As today was my final day in Tokyo, I wanted to do everything that I hadn't yet gotten a chance to do. So for an early lunch, I walked into Akihabara with Zachary where we ate gyoza and fries (unsurprisingly delicious.)

After lunch, we walked around Akihabara and looked in some cool stores, my favorite of which sold extremely rare and high end Pokémon cards (obviously no purchases were made.) Our last stop in Akihabara was a 7 story arcade where we played the rhythm game MaiMai which involves hitting buttons on and around a large circle screen on beats that coincide with the selected song. It was a lot of fun but I kept losing to Zachary by only a few points so I'll just have to lock in next time we play.

Leaving the arcade, we caught a train to Asakusa from Suehirocho station. We met up with Ren at a Starbucks just outside of Asakusa Kannon Sensoji (the massive temple that we had previously visited on our first day in Tokyo.) I came here today to attend the Sanja Festival, which takes place over the course of three days at Asakusa Kannon Sensoji. This is one of the most popular annual festivals in Tokyo, brining in around two million people over the course of the three day event. The entire city of Asakusa was lively and dressed for the occasion. It was a really cool thing to be able to experience while here and I even got to see large groups parading carts (carts are large and heavy portable shrines) through the streets.

Seeing the community of Asakusa come together in this way to celebrate the three founders of Sensoji temple was amazing. After spending a little over an hour participating in the festivities, Zachary and I walked around Asakusa, stopping to look in some stores. I bought a new pair of earrings (sorry mom) before we stopped at a cat cafe for ten minutes which absolutely lived up to the hype (spiritually healing experience.) Our last stop in Asakusa was a local sushi place which was both delicious and very affordable.

After leaving Asakusa, I returned to the hotel to rest up before our journey to Kyoto tomorrow but I think I will be leaving to go to Round 1 soon with the lads (Round 1 is an entertainment chain that has an arcade/ bowling/ batting cage/ and everything else you could want!)

Independent Excursion: Academic Reflection (Sanja Matsuri)

For my final free day in Tokyo, I returned to Asakusa to attend the 2024 Sanja Matsuri (Matsuri meaning festival). The Sanja Matsuri has been held annually in Asakusa since the Edo period and is an extremely well known event throughout all of Japan. The Sanja Matsuri is held to honor the "three men" who founded Senso-ji temple (Sanja directly translates to three people.) The three founders are two fisherman brothers, named Hamanari Hinokuma and Takenari Hinokuma and a village cheif, named Nakatomo Hajino.

In order to learn more about Sanja Matsuri for my academic reflection, I selected and analyzed the reading, Script and Score: Revisiting Nelson Goodman at Sanja Matsuri - Japan by Ray Lucas. This reading is a section from Architecture, Festival and the City with an emphasis on the architectural and anthropological factors of Sanja Matsuri in relation to the festival's traditions and history.

Within the reading, Lucas discusses the "collapse of various strata of social and spiritual life into the space of the city" in relation to the culture surrounding Sanja Matsuri. Lucas is referencing how diverse the cast of participants and practitioners of the Sanja Matsuri can be. Within the reading, he points this out by mentioning how the Tengu (Japanese mountain goblin) walks around Asakusa alongside priests and geishas, who can be seen with blue collar workers (such as fisherman and carpenters.) These are aspects of Japanese society that typically see little to no overlap, but at the Sanja Matsuri everyone comes together as equals to celebrate the annual festival and the founders of Senso-ji (Senso temple.) This was not something that I had realized while at the festival, but in hindsight this diversity and intermingling of different facets of Japanese society was definitely present. For example, the parishioners carrying the portable shrines were of all different ages and walks of life. However, they were all equally involved and invested in the festival. Additionally, there were even smaller portable shrines being carried around by kids, assisted by an adult when needed (it was really cute.) This level of across the board involvement is what Lucas was referencing in the selected reading.

Within the reading, Lucas gets this point across by employing a number of different methods. By utilizing maps, drawings and photographs, Lucas is able to drive his point home in an effective and convincing manner. One area that I felt Lucas did a really great job explaining with these methods was the outfits worn by those involved in the festival. The outfits are described as stiff or rigid and Lucas challenges this based on some of the poses depicted in historic drawings of the festival. I found this reading to be very interesting and it enhanced my enjoyment of the festival after the fact.

Lucas, Ray. “Script and Score Revisiting Nelson Goodman at Sanja Matsuri – Japan .” Essay. In Architecture, Festival and the City, 81–96. London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2019.

[yusakututhiya]

Shrimp fan?

📍Suehirocho/ Naka/ Kanagawa

[keihinstation]

Suehirocho すえひろちょう 末広町／函館市 函館市電

[konradnews]

APA Hotel Akihabara Suehirocho Ekimae opens. All 205 rooms are equipped with mobile Wi-Fi rental and universal power supply.

On July 11, APA Hotel opened “APA Hotel ” (3-15-7 Sotokanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo). This is the fifth building in the Akihabara area. It is located 1 minute on foot from Suehirocho Station and 4 minutes from JR Akihabara Station. The 14-story building has a total of 205 standard and deluxe twin rooms. Since Akihabara is an area with high inbound demand, the hotel has implemented new initiatives. In…

[zacharyja]

Friday, May 17th, 2024

Odaiba Visit

Today was the same morning schedule as most days leading to us walking to Suehirocho station to head to Odaiba. I also realized I hadn’t described or showed how my accommodation situation looked, so I took some photos of my room to add to the blog.

These are traditional Japanese style rooms, called Ryokan and sleeping on the futon beds is actually not as bad as I had anticipated, though I definitely do miss my bed. We made our way to Odaiba and stopped at Daiba station to walk to the Fuji TV headquarters, which is an insane looking building that is almost unbelievably massive and looks straight out of a video game.

We were under the impression that there would be a museum here which my professor had been to 5 years prior, though apparently the museum closed sometime since then so there was not actually much to do here aside from go to the observatory at the top and look out at Tokyo Bay and see the Rainbow Bridge. The view from the top was amazing and arguably made the trip here worth it. From here we left the building and made our way to a Japanese BBQ place on a rooftop nearby. We ended up seeing some cars drifting and doing doughnuts in a parking lot which was pretty cool to see in person, and was such a random thing to stumble upon.

The restaurant was outdoors and had actual barbecue grills setup for us to grill our own food, which we were provided with chicken thigh, pork belly, sausage, and pork chops. The food was great and I enjoyed the rooftop view with nice social vibes from the whole group.

After eating lunch we all made our way over to see the massive full scale replica of the Unicorn Gundam. The Gundam was an absolute unit and was crazy to see something to that massive of a scale. I am a fan of Gundam and was sad about the closing of the other full scale Gundam in Yokohama so was pleasantly surprised to see this today.

We also ended up seeing the Statue of Liberty replica which was a pretty odd sight to see outside of New York. Apparently France loaned Japan their Statue of Liberty for 2 years and the Japanese loved it so much that they decided to build their own after the two years had passed. Later on we made our way to a place called Teamlabs Planets, which is a very interactive and unique museum/art exhibit. It’s hard to explain without seeing it but to begin they had us take off our shoes and socks and we walked through the entire thing barefoot, with many physically stimulating pieces of art including walking through waterfalls, pillow covered floors, mirrors, milky looking water with koi fish projections, and a mirror laden room filled to the brim with live orchids hanging down from the ceiling. The museum itself was pretty cool and was definitely not like anything I had ever done before.

After the Teamlabs me and some friends made our way back to the Gundam Base to go see if we could buy some cool Gundam, we shopped around for a while and ended up playing some Maimai, which is a popular Japanese arcade rhythm game, where you tap buttons in accordance with notes that match the beats of a song. It gets pretty intense the faster the songs get and the higher the difficulty is. After this we made our way back to the hotel to do our blogs. Today is also my friend Griffins birthday so we will go out to celebrate with him tonight.

Academic Reflection

After reading the articles today and learning about how postmodernism often leads to the inevitable ignoring local traditions and culture in place of baseless, boring and lifeless buildings. While the architecture was amazing, as much of this in Odaiba was built during times of great economic growth and tons of money to go around, I couldn’t help but feel some sense of cultural loss and much of the life that gives Tokyo its charm seemed to be lost here. I believe this is because it is not trying to be Tokyo, it’s attempting to put on shoes that it doesn’t fit in and show off how great and massive they are, in a characterless display of wealth. While this is nice in a sense that it allows for massive cool buildings, I definitely prefer areas like Akihabara or Nihombashi where is seems that there is tons of character and you can feel a sense of cultural significance. The idea that this land was reclaimed is also a bit weird to me, but seems like a good idea in theory as they could now use up land that was previously used for nothing too important.

[ninetail-fox]

the monster cafe ,Suehirocho

[tosshi-san]

末広町 味の三恵。 正統派チャーハン。 見た目最高、味普通。 さすが、昭和の町中華。 期待を裏切ってきやがる、、、。 おつまみチャーシューは￥310とは思えぬボリューム！ 餃子はなんと羽根つき。 ここは、料理の味ではなく渋いお店の味を味わうことにしよう。 #nostalgia #nostalgic #SUEHIROCHO #AKIBA #akihabara #chineserestaurant #ノスタルジック町中華 #町中華 #ノスタルジーの境地 #秋葉原 #アキバ #俺たちのアキバ #チャーハン #正統派チャーハン #チャーハンは中華の基本 #美味しんぼ より #日本炒飯協会 #餃子 #羽根つき餃子 #おつまみチャーシュー が一番旨かった(汗) #料理の味より店の味 #まごころ町中華 #迷店紀行 (味の三恵) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqOCTKAgwq1/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=125twy5ueiq3w

[ramen-tokyo]

王道家直系 IEKEI TOKYO「チャーシューメン（3枚）」

✔️Store name / Menu

✔️Topping : 玉ネギ

✔️Nearest : 末広町駅

[bunsakashitajapanpaintings]

"The Inn's Owner" Pension Yumekukan Suehirocho, Hakodate, Japan Watercolor on coldpress paper 9" x 12"

[pancake-hotcake]

クリスマスパンケーキ 秋葉原フライングスコッツマンで♪12月25日まで ボリュームたっぷり！（東京/末広町）

[yusakututhiya]

Devour

📍Suehirocho/ Kanagawa / Japan

[a2cg]

#金森赤レンガ倉庫 は海辺に面した、その名の通りの #赤煉瓦 が印象的な倉庫街です。 #北海道 #函館市 #末広町 #建築 #木造建築 #建物 #建物探訪 #レトロ #レトロ建築 #ノスタルジー #昭和 #hokkaido #hakodate #suehirocho #building #architecture #wooden #woodenbuilding #retro #oldarchitecture #showa (函館金森赤レンガ倉庫 Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_GOor6JTiJ/?igshid=19r1uu6y1bwyq

[bobbynumark]

[actron]

末広町駅🚉にて。「悠々快泳」というタイトルだそうだ。 #Asia #Japan #Tokyo #Akiba #Akihabara #Suehirocho #station #subway #art #arts #publicart (末広町駅) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxRihGmA_Zp/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ry28hre4jifu