Almost Beautiful: The Shin-kiba Industrial Zone

I find myself quite fascinated with the area around Tokyo Bay these days. It’s pretty incredible to look at it from Google Earth and see the amazing industrial development around it.

This is Shin-Kiba.　”Kiba” means “lumber yard” and “shin” means “new.” There’s another station nearby called Kiba, which was the original lumber yard, but when land was reclaimed from the bay, it ended up in central Tokyo. A new lumber yard was built here and called “Shin-kiba.”

Sometimes the factories can be almost beautiful.

Shinjuku Love Hotel

There’s more information about   love hotels in my new book, Love Hotels: An Inside Look at Japan’s Sexual Playgrounds. I spent years visiting love hotels around Japan, interviewing love hotel designers, owners and staff, and wading through Japanese books on sex and love hotels to bring you this book.

It’s 182 pages of information about their history, the people who design and operate them, their place in Japanese society, crime, and much, much more. There’s also a love hotel guide with information on how to get to the best hotels in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Yokohama, Sapporo, and Fukuoka.

For more information about love hotels, please visit my newly updated love hotel page at: http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/lovehotels.html

To order or find out more about the book, please visit: http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/lovehotelbookintro.htm. There’s also a smaller guidebook, with just the hotel information for 500 yen: http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/lovehotelguide.html.

There are more love hotel-related posts
here.

Rooftop Shrine

It’s not unusual for Japanese companies to have shrines on the company’s grounds. I guess this one is on the roof because there’s not enough space anywhere else.

Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum

The Nihon Minka-en, a park filled with old houses from the Edo Period (1603-1868) is one of my favorite places in the Tokyo area. I’ve been there quite a few times, though, so I was happy to discover the Edo Tokyo Tatemono-en in Koganei City, west of Tokyo.
It’s similar to the Nihon Minka-en, but most of the buildings are of more recent vintage, the majority being from the 19th and 20th centuries. There are three sections, one of old, wooden Edo-Period buildings, one with a recreation of a typical street from the early 20th century, and a third with homes belonging to important people of great historical value.

Not only are the buildings interesting on the outside, but the museum has done a really good job of recreating what they were like inside. In the photo below, you can see an abacus and the account books　in this cosmetics shop called Murakami Seikadou (notice that the kanji are all written from right to left). All of the buildings have English pamphlets with interesting descriptions of the buildings’ history, architectural characteristics, and most interestingly, details about the people who lived in them and their businesses or lives.

The photo below shows an umbrella-maker’s shop. There’s an interesting display on how they were made.

A small residential street of row houses.

Hotel Broccoli

The Hotel Broccoli in Osaka’s Tanimachi-9chome love hotel district.

There’s more information about   love hotels in my new book, Love Hotels: An Inside Look at Japan’s Sexual Playgrounds. I spent years visiting love hotels around Japan, interviewing love hotel designers, owners and staff, and wading through Japanese books on sex and love hotels to bring you this book.

It’s 182 pages of information about their history, the people who design and operate them, their place in Japanese society, crime, and much, much more. There’s also a love hotel guide with information on how to get to the best hotels in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Yokohama, Sapporo, and Fukuoka.

For more information about love hotels, please visit my newly updated love hotel page at: http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/lovehotels.html

To order or find out more about the book, please visit: http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/lovehotelbookintro.htm. There’s also a smaller guidebook, with just the hotel information for 500 yen: http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/lovehotelguide.html.

There are more love hotel-related posts
here.