Konichiwa!

Konichiwa!

After midreview, we took a long vacation to Japan for 10 days-- I'm writing to you on the 9th day. We are currently in Tokyo now; I'm glad we ended our trip this way.

In 10 days we have gone to 7 cities: Takamatsu, Naoshima, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Yokohama, and now Tokyo. It's sort of backwards from what a normal tourist would do, but then again a bunch of architects aren't a bunch of normal tourists (we may be more annoying though, taking pictures in galleries where no photos are allowed...but we are students still so it's ok, right?)

Since we have already been in Seoul for 2 months, we have seemed to OD on the traditional ancient architecture...although we did see ancient temples and shrines in Nara and Kyoto, I think I was too tired and burnt out to fully appreciate them. We've seen some amazing modern architecture here, especially some of the best works of Tadao Ando as well as some works by Kenzo Tange, Kengo Kuma, and Toyo Ito. I keep hearing my professor say while we were in Osaka: "No more Ando! it's too much. See something else." So funny coming from an architect.

Anyway, more details and photos to come once I land back in Seoul tomorrow.