Two pictures taken in Azabu around my flat, on my way to buy some omiyage. First is a Shrine (with a digitaly added building in the background… ;-) ). Second one is the path next to the Moto Azabu Hills tower….

Matrix Reloaded is out since this week end. Seemingly, already full booked for the next 3 weeks (almost not exagerated). I like quite a lot the movie posters, quite cool, and I guess, from the number of those you can find in Shibuya, that this second Matrix will be a huge blockbuster… I think I’ll go for the motorbike scene… or Monica Bellucci ….

Links:
- Download the Animatrix at: Into The Matrix
- The Matrix Ducati 996 (seemingly, Ducati doesn’t want to sell their new 999).

Some pictures taken today while driving around: Roppongi Hills, the now famous new Prada Shop (Designed by Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron, Switzerland. Cost around $85 million. Opening June 6th 2003. 3,500 Visitors for the opening week end), and two anonymous trains…

Very interesting exhibition at Ebisu – Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, for the month of photography in Tokyo. First part of the visit was the Nobuyoshi ARAKI’s « Hana-Jinsei » exhibition, an already acclaimed japanese photographer. The atmosphere was quite oppressive, the surronding music and the theme of the photos, from black & white to extremely vivid colors intriguing dying flowers. Quite fascinating some time as I keep some of the images in my head now. The second part was more relaxing for the mind (we needed it?). Eddie and I were quite impressed by some of the works from the IN&OUT exposition from Japanese Students, developping various themes, sometime with humour. We enjoyed a lot this part. This IN (Internal world) & OUT (look to Society) expo is from May, 30th till June 15th, entrance is Free. Araki’s one is 1,000Yens.

Additional Link: IN&OUT Expo.

A nice cafe in Harajuku, Tokyo Apartment Cafe, we go quite often with Eddie and Thierry. The atmosphere is cool, quite 70’s like. I love this decoration, and especially the part on the picture, quite relaxing for a talk after work.

Today’s « meeting » was mainly website related. Thierry is building a high-potential website, but still under construction at this time. High potential as it’s already 3 years it has been started, but he has always been keeping the secret on the content… Anyway, we’ll just have to wait (2 more years???)

Link to the Cafe Website, includes a Map: Tokyo Apartment Cafe

Above some of pictures of today’s nomikai in one of the « Student » izakaya in Shinjuku. Thanks to Sylvain and Ken kun for the organization. It was nice. As expected, everybody was drunk enough to take the train at 10h30…. Pictures include Guillaume, Hisashi, Hitomi, Yumi, Sylvain, Ken, Aki, Sawako, …
OK, pictures are taken with my Clie (Eddie, I think this justifies my « Powered by Clie » banner, no?), so the quality of the pictures is quite poor. It’s quite handy though, as I would probably not have brought my D30.

I took this name for my weblog in reference to the HK movie from Fruit Chan Made In Hong Kong. I just realised, browsing the web, that it’s the name of a book from Yoshiharu Tsukamoto. Tokyo, a city constantly rebuilding itself, in a way loosing its identity.

Article Interview. Also includes some interesting pictures from Pet Architecture Guide Book by Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tsukamoto Architectural Laboratory, and Atelier Bow-Wow.

Back from Shirakawa-Go, I have been looking on the web at Unesco sites I haven’t visited yet in Japan.
Looking at the list below from the Unesco website,
I realised that I have not seen much yet…

Next will be this Ryukyu Island near Ishigaki, I guess…

- Buddhist Monuments in the Horyu-ji Area (1993 )
- Himeji-jo (1993)
- Yakushima (1993)
- Shirakami-Sanchi (1993)
- Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities) (1994)
- Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama (1995)
- Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) (1996)
- Itsukushima Shinto Shrine (1996)
- Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara (1998)
- Shrines and Temples of Nikko (1999)
- Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu (2000)