Today was a proper, fall day--the sort that's half pleasant and half not. It was cool and windy, but the leaves won't really start changing here until November so all the trees and plants are still pretty green. But it gets dark around 4pm and the air just has that "fall" smell to it, if that makes sense. The not-pleasant part of the equation was the cold rain that fell for half the day and made walking home from the train station a bit of a soggy affair.
And of course, since it was this sort of cold, rainy, fall day I decided to spend most of it walking around outside.
Disclaimer: everything I did today was the result of picking my friend Frances's brain for stuff to do in the Meguro/ Naka-Meguro area because I knew she'd spent a lot of time here this summer.
The first thing I did was a quick stroll through the Meguro Sky Garden.
It's actually pretty hard to describe, and even harder to get a decent picture of. Basically it's this massive concrete spiral that goes from the 9th floor of the building all the way to ground level that has a garden on it. Maybe a good description would be like a bigger, swirlier NYC High Line?
I tried to take some pictures that would give you guys a sense of the scale but there really wasn't any good place to do that. Needless to say, given the weather there were very few people outside walking around or relaxing.
The view is quite good, however. On a clear day you're supposed to be able to see Mount Fuji but, obviously, that wasn't going to happen for me.
Then, of course, I decided to do a lot of walking along the river:
I'm clearly here in the wrong season because it's obvious that in Spring, when all these trees are in bloom, this area would be even MORE gorgeous.
In many ways the Meguro/ Naka-Meguro area doesn't even feel like Tokyo.
In this area was also a company called BESS Square:
Basically, as far as I could tell, it's a series of sample wooden houses--what we would call cabins?--that people can walk through and decide if they want to build a cabin-type thing of their own. The insides were actually really nice. Not sure how I feel about the dome-shape, but the others were really well-designed and much more to the "Western" scale than not.
A few blocks down from BESS was the spiffiest bookstore I've ever been to: the Daikanyama branch of Tsutaya. This is a bookstore chain that (usually) sells a combination of items for rent as well as new items you can buy. This Tsutaya was three connected buildings filled with mostly books and magazines dedicated to art, food, architecture, design etcetcetc. I've literally never seen so many magazines dedicated to food or cars of bread or what have you. It's so fancy that you're not allowed to take photos inside.
...I bought a magazine...
.....it was about coffee.
The last stop on my itinerary for the day was the (also) nearby Kyu Asakura House. This traditional Japanese house was built in 1919 by Torajiro Asakura. It survived the Great Kanto Earthquake and also WW2, making it a pretty important piece of Japanese architecture but also an indication of life and culture.
It's a two-story house with a tile roof done (with one exception) in the traditional Japanese style. The first floor was for the family while the second floor was for hosting formal affairs (mainly for Torajiro's line of work). There's hallways that run around the perimeter of the house, overlooking the Japanese garden.
One of the great things, in my opinion, about Japanese houses is the flexibility of their doors, screens, and windows. Most of them can be removed or added as necessary, or simply slid open or shut to create or subtract space and let the exterior garden into the interior spaces. Today, because of the rain, most of the doors and windows were shut, but I still love the contrasting patterns of wood, paper, and latticework:
This is the one "Western" room added on to the house a little after its original construction so that guests could be greeted in the fashionable Western style. Note that instead of sliding windows there are standard casements, higher ceilings, carpet (though likely not the original from 1919), and wooden baseboards.
I left before the house closed around 6pm, stopping briefly in the darkening garden to take a look at more of the house from the outside:
It hadn't really registered how large it was, but actually the building (and the surrounding courtyard, garden, and even carriage house/garage) occupies quite a large footprint. Not entirely sure what Torajiro's job was but clearly it was profitable...now if only I could upgrade my own humble 26.08 square meter apartment.
And of course, since it was this sort of cold, rainy, fall day I decided to spend most of it walking around outside.
Disclaimer: everything I did today was the result of picking my friend Frances's brain for stuff to do in the Meguro/ Naka-Meguro area because I knew she'd spent a lot of time here this summer.
The first thing I did was a quick stroll through the Meguro Sky Garden.
It's actually pretty hard to describe, and even harder to get a decent picture of. Basically it's this massive concrete spiral that goes from the 9th floor of the building all the way to ground level that has a garden on it. Maybe a good description would be like a bigger, swirlier NYC High Line?
I tried to take some pictures that would give you guys a sense of the scale but there really wasn't any good place to do that. Needless to say, given the weather there were very few people outside walking around or relaxing.
The view is quite good, however. On a clear day you're supposed to be able to see Mount Fuji but, obviously, that wasn't going to happen for me.
Then, of course, I decided to do a lot of walking along the river:
I'm clearly here in the wrong season because it's obvious that in Spring, when all these trees are in bloom, this area would be even MORE gorgeous.
In many ways the Meguro/ Naka-Meguro area doesn't even feel like Tokyo.
In this area was also a company called BESS Square:
Basically, as far as I could tell, it's a series of sample wooden houses--what we would call cabins?--that people can walk through and decide if they want to build a cabin-type thing of their own. The insides were actually really nice. Not sure how I feel about the dome-shape, but the others were really well-designed and much more to the "Western" scale than not.
A few blocks down from BESS was the spiffiest bookstore I've ever been to: the Daikanyama branch of Tsutaya. This is a bookstore chain that (usually) sells a combination of items for rent as well as new items you can buy. This Tsutaya was three connected buildings filled with mostly books and magazines dedicated to art, food, architecture, design etcetcetc. I've literally never seen so many magazines dedicated to food or cars of bread or what have you. It's so fancy that you're not allowed to take photos inside.
...I bought a magazine...
.....it was about coffee.
The last stop on my itinerary for the day was the (also) nearby Kyu Asakura House. This traditional Japanese house was built in 1919 by Torajiro Asakura. It survived the Great Kanto Earthquake and also WW2, making it a pretty important piece of Japanese architecture but also an indication of life and culture.
It's a two-story house with a tile roof done (with one exception) in the traditional Japanese style. The first floor was for the family while the second floor was for hosting formal affairs (mainly for Torajiro's line of work). There's hallways that run around the perimeter of the house, overlooking the Japanese garden.
One of the great things, in my opinion, about Japanese houses is the flexibility of their doors, screens, and windows. Most of them can be removed or added as necessary, or simply slid open or shut to create or subtract space and let the exterior garden into the interior spaces. Today, because of the rain, most of the doors and windows were shut, but I still love the contrasting patterns of wood, paper, and latticework:
This is the one "Western" room added on to the house a little after its original construction so that guests could be greeted in the fashionable Western style. Note that instead of sliding windows there are standard casements, higher ceilings, carpet (though likely not the original from 1919), and wooden baseboards.
I left before the house closed around 6pm, stopping briefly in the darkening garden to take a look at more of the house from the outside:
It hadn't really registered how large it was, but actually the building (and the surrounding courtyard, garden, and even carriage house/garage) occupies quite a large footprint. Not entirely sure what Torajiro's job was but clearly it was profitable...now if only I could upgrade my own humble 26.08 square meter apartment.
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