Wow, things have been busy! I'm in Kuala Lumpur now in the dorm room where I'll be living for the rest of the summer. Since the last update, we've covered Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Penang, Malaysia. Obviously, I have some catching up to do on this blog! I've been procrastinating on posting until I could catch up but finally decided I'd just post about Malaysia, then I'll try and write some posts on the other places later, so they'll just have to be a little out of order.
We just got back from our site visit to Lake Kenyir in a rural part of Malaysia. Lake Kenyir is around an 8 hour drive from Kuala Lumpur. Our site is a small peninsula on the lake where we'll be designing an eco-resort and information center. We stayed at a resort on the lake for the weekend, which seemed like it was going to be nice, then proceeded to give a third of the class food poisoning. People sometimes make fun of me for being a lazy eater (i.e. not cooking, not eating crab because it isn't worth the effort, avoiding shrimp if it has the shell, not eating watermelon because the seeds are annoying to deal with, etc) but this time my laziness saved me. We think the culprit was some bad seafood that was served by our hotel, but I didn't eat the seafood because it didn't seem worth the effort to take the mussels out of their shells. Most people who ate it were throwing up and ended up at the sketchy clinic with IV's because they got so dehydrated. We ended up cutting the trip slightly short so people could come back, visit the university hospital, and get some rest.
However, despite that site visit, I'm enjoying Malaysia so far. It seems like there's a lot to explore so I'll try and do as much exploring as I can in the next month. We've already explored a number of the malls in Kuala Lumpur, a city of malls. People seem to love malls because they're air conditioned and will go there just to hang out. We have a few that are a cheap cab ride away, so we've been checking them out. Besides the malls, we went on a short half-day tour of Kuala Lumpur, but I definitely need to go back to all the places we saw. The goal is not to get to get sucked into the mentality that since I live here, I don't need to rush to see things. That's how you end up back at home realizing you missed a bunch of stuff and can't figure out where all the time went.
Anyway, I have posts written for Beijing and Shanghai, so I'll try and upload them soon. Since we won't be traveling as much, maybe I'll find more time to update this.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
I need to go back to Japan...
Sorry for the lack of updates and photos lately. As you might imagine, I've been rather busy and the pace of our travels has only gotten quicker in China and Vietnam as we've been visiting a new city every 2-3 days. But anyway, this post is about the rest of Japan.
After a week, we finally left Tokyo for China, and I can't believe how much we covered in that time. Last time I posted, I wrote the post on the train on the way to Sendai where we went to visit the Sendai Mediatheque. After a two-hour train ride, this was the only thing we were scheduled to see that day before another two-hour train ride back to Tokyo, so we all wondered whether it would be worth the trip since there was so much we wanted to do in Tokyo. After seeing it, I wasn't absolutely blown away, but I think it was definitely worth it to go. Designed by Toyo Ito, this library and media center opened about ten years ago and has been really popular with the people of Sendai. What I liked about it was that it was something I could see myself designing. The outside was a pristine glass box, but the internal structure consisted of large, irregular glass columns which punctured through the floor plates at different angles. Stairs, elevators, and mechanical items were housed in the columns, and the columns also served as light wells to bring light from the roof down into the building. With the exception of the columns, each floor was created by a different designer. While some were better than others, it gave the building an interesting character and the building still felt unified by the columns and exterior glazing. Although I can't figure out exactly why, the building somehow reminded me of the Seattle Public Library by Rem Koolhaas, a building I really liked.
When we got back to Tokyo from Sendai, we made a stop at our hotel, then a group of us took the subway to have dinner and explore the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Like Shibuya, Shinjuku is another nightlife area, but it is not quite as crazy. It consists of fewer large chain stores and more small restaurants, shops, and bars. Unfortunately, it was a weeknight and it was getting late, so things were starting to close. We walked around until it started raining hard and we realized we needed to catch the last train back. Shinjuku is definitely somewhere I'd like to go back to.
After a day of taking one of the fastest trains in the world to visit a modern library, the next day was spent going back in time. We took a bus outside of Tokyo to visit Nikko Tosho-gu Shrine, a very ornate temple built during the Japanese Baroque Period. The temple was nice, but by this time, we were all templed out and wished we could have had the day to spend exploring Tokyo instead. In the evening, we went to check out Harajuku, an area known for its narrow shopping alleys and its Harajuku Girls. For dinner, we couldn't help but stop at a delicious looking burger place and we weren't disappointed by Japanese hamburgers. Afterwards, we wandered around and checked out a cool looking Audi Building and cool looking furniture store. I was bummed that we weren't able to find any Harajuju Girls before heading back to the hotel.
Luckily, the next morning, after a stop at Kengo Tange's Olympic Stadium, our next destination turned out to be Harajuku for lunch, where we finally saw a Harajuku Girl who was all dolled up. After lunch, we walked down Omotesando, a street known for high end luxury stores. We checked out the Dior Building, which was great from the outside but boring on the inside. Then we went to Tod's, a building whose concrete facade and structure is based on the street trees outside. It seemed really cool but I didn't get a chance to go in. Finally, the legendary Prada Store by Herzog & deMeuron, a building that we know well from seeing it in countless architecture lectures. This was definitely the best of the three because it did a great job integrating interior and exterior. However, all three buildings were soured by the attitudes of the employees. They seemed to have no appreciation for their architecturally significant buildings and there was clearly distaste and mistrust behind their forced smiles since they knew we clearly couldn't afford to buy anything. However, we made the best of it and a few people managed to get some pictures even though they weren't allowed inside. Our next stop was the National Art Center Tokyo, a museum designed by Kisho Kurokawa, which was nice, but kind of blah. Finally, the bus dropped us off in Roppongi, a westernized shopping area. We explored a little before a few of us decided to take a subway to Ginza, another area for shopping that is also known for coming alive at night. The highlight of Ginza was the Swatch Flagship Store, a watch boutique by Shigeru Ban where each watch brand has its own store on a different level of the building. The first floor is open to the street with a glass elevator to each store that displays a preview of its watches. The elevator would take you up or down to the corresponding store.
Tokyo has a legendary club scene, so after returning from Ginza, we began to get ready to go out. Most clubs in Tokyo don't open until 10 or 11 and don't pick up until 12 or 1. We left around 11 for a club called Ageha, which required taking a subway to Shibuya, then a free shuttle from there to the warehouse district of Tokyo where the club was. We chose Ageha because it's the biggest club in Tokyo and would have something for everyone, and we weren't disappointed with its four different dance floors. We ended up back at the hotel around 5:30 AM to get a few hours of sleep before our last day in Tokyo.
The last day consisted of a trip to the Minka-En Museum, which is a collection of preserved Japanese houses from different periods that you can walk through. From there, we visited the Yokohama Port Terminal, by Foreign Office Architects, one of my favorite buildings of the trip so far. After a long and exhausting day, we returned to Tokyo and spent our last evening in Shibuya before heading back to the hotel for bed.
Tokyo was a great city and I can't believe we saw so much in such a short time! However, there's still so much to explore. I've only been to a tiny fraction of the subway stations in Tokyo's vast network, and I'm sure there's interesting stuff around all of them. There's also so much more of Japan that we didn't get to see: other cities, mountain towns, buildings, and islands. And of course, it would be great to climb Mt. Fuji. Japan definitely requires a few more visits!
Tokyo pictures can be found here.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2498770&id=3431093&l=df3ffdbe1f
After a week, we finally left Tokyo for China, and I can't believe how much we covered in that time. Last time I posted, I wrote the post on the train on the way to Sendai where we went to visit the Sendai Mediatheque. After a two-hour train ride, this was the only thing we were scheduled to see that day before another two-hour train ride back to Tokyo, so we all wondered whether it would be worth the trip since there was so much we wanted to do in Tokyo. After seeing it, I wasn't absolutely blown away, but I think it was definitely worth it to go. Designed by Toyo Ito, this library and media center opened about ten years ago and has been really popular with the people of Sendai. What I liked about it was that it was something I could see myself designing. The outside was a pristine glass box, but the internal structure consisted of large, irregular glass columns which punctured through the floor plates at different angles. Stairs, elevators, and mechanical items were housed in the columns, and the columns also served as light wells to bring light from the roof down into the building. With the exception of the columns, each floor was created by a different designer. While some were better than others, it gave the building an interesting character and the building still felt unified by the columns and exterior glazing. Although I can't figure out exactly why, the building somehow reminded me of the Seattle Public Library by Rem Koolhaas, a building I really liked.
When we got back to Tokyo from Sendai, we made a stop at our hotel, then a group of us took the subway to have dinner and explore the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Like Shibuya, Shinjuku is another nightlife area, but it is not quite as crazy. It consists of fewer large chain stores and more small restaurants, shops, and bars. Unfortunately, it was a weeknight and it was getting late, so things were starting to close. We walked around until it started raining hard and we realized we needed to catch the last train back. Shinjuku is definitely somewhere I'd like to go back to.
After a day of taking one of the fastest trains in the world to visit a modern library, the next day was spent going back in time. We took a bus outside of Tokyo to visit Nikko Tosho-gu Shrine, a very ornate temple built during the Japanese Baroque Period. The temple was nice, but by this time, we were all templed out and wished we could have had the day to spend exploring Tokyo instead. In the evening, we went to check out Harajuku, an area known for its narrow shopping alleys and its Harajuku Girls. For dinner, we couldn't help but stop at a delicious looking burger place and we weren't disappointed by Japanese hamburgers. Afterwards, we wandered around and checked out a cool looking Audi Building and cool looking furniture store. I was bummed that we weren't able to find any Harajuju Girls before heading back to the hotel.
Luckily, the next morning, after a stop at Kengo Tange's Olympic Stadium, our next destination turned out to be Harajuku for lunch, where we finally saw a Harajuku Girl who was all dolled up. After lunch, we walked down Omotesando, a street known for high end luxury stores. We checked out the Dior Building, which was great from the outside but boring on the inside. Then we went to Tod's, a building whose concrete facade and structure is based on the street trees outside. It seemed really cool but I didn't get a chance to go in. Finally, the legendary Prada Store by Herzog & deMeuron, a building that we know well from seeing it in countless architecture lectures. This was definitely the best of the three because it did a great job integrating interior and exterior. However, all three buildings were soured by the attitudes of the employees. They seemed to have no appreciation for their architecturally significant buildings and there was clearly distaste and mistrust behind their forced smiles since they knew we clearly couldn't afford to buy anything. However, we made the best of it and a few people managed to get some pictures even though they weren't allowed inside. Our next stop was the National Art Center Tokyo, a museum designed by Kisho Kurokawa, which was nice, but kind of blah. Finally, the bus dropped us off in Roppongi, a westernized shopping area. We explored a little before a few of us decided to take a subway to Ginza, another area for shopping that is also known for coming alive at night. The highlight of Ginza was the Swatch Flagship Store, a watch boutique by Shigeru Ban where each watch brand has its own store on a different level of the building. The first floor is open to the street with a glass elevator to each store that displays a preview of its watches. The elevator would take you up or down to the corresponding store.
Tokyo has a legendary club scene, so after returning from Ginza, we began to get ready to go out. Most clubs in Tokyo don't open until 10 or 11 and don't pick up until 12 or 1. We left around 11 for a club called Ageha, which required taking a subway to Shibuya, then a free shuttle from there to the warehouse district of Tokyo where the club was. We chose Ageha because it's the biggest club in Tokyo and would have something for everyone, and we weren't disappointed with its four different dance floors. We ended up back at the hotel around 5:30 AM to get a few hours of sleep before our last day in Tokyo.
The last day consisted of a trip to the Minka-En Museum, which is a collection of preserved Japanese houses from different periods that you can walk through. From there, we visited the Yokohama Port Terminal, by Foreign Office Architects, one of my favorite buildings of the trip so far. After a long and exhausting day, we returned to Tokyo and spent our last evening in Shibuya before heading back to the hotel for bed.
Tokyo was a great city and I can't believe we saw so much in such a short time! However, there's still so much to explore. I've only been to a tiny fraction of the subway stations in Tokyo's vast network, and I'm sure there's interesting stuff around all of them. There's also so much more of Japan that we didn't get to see: other cities, mountain towns, buildings, and islands. And of course, it would be great to climb Mt. Fuji. Japan definitely requires a few more visits!
Tokyo pictures can be found here.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2498770&id=3431093&l=df3ffdbe1f
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