Kim Jong-un crosses border into South Korea for historic peace talks

Kim Jong-un has become the first North Korean leader to cross into the South since the end of the Korean War in 1953 for a historic summit with his southern counterpart. South Korean President Moon Jae-in personally greeted Kim with a hand shake at the border truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the countries.

Gyu Kaku Boston

Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ in Brookline and Harvard Square is the ideal spot for a great dining experience in Boston. The restaurant type is called Yakiniku in Japanese.This barbecue spot is a great place to meet friends. Not a place to dine alone.

Don't even think about that frozen microwave dinner!

A post shared by Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ (@gyukakujbbq) on Jun 15, 2017 at 6:42pm PDT

NOVA: The Origami Revolution

NOVA: The Origami Revolution

Engineers are using origami to design drugs, micro-robots, and future space missions.

The centuries-old tradition of folding two-dimensional paper into three-dimensional shapes is inspiring a scientific revolution. The rules of folding are at the heart of many natural phenomena, from how leaves blossom to how beetles fly. But now, engineers and designers are applying its principles to reshape the world around us—and even within us, designing new drugs, micro-robots, and future space missions. With this burgeoning field of origami-inspired-design, the question is: can the mathematics of origami be boiled down to one elegant algorithm—a fail-proof guidebook to make any object out of a flat surface, just by folding? And if so, what would that mean for the future of design? Explore the high-tech future of this age-old art as NOVA unfolds “The Origami Revolution.”

Japanese road reopens one week after vast sinkhole appeared

Nichiren Buddism

Nichiren Daishonin

Nichiren Daishonin, a Japanese Buddhist priest who lived during the Kamakura period (1185–1333). Nichiren is known for his sole devotion to the Lotus Sutra, asserting that its ultimate teachings are the exclusive method to attain enlightenment.

Lotus Sutra

Gohonzon

Obama Hiroshima Ceremony and Speech

Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. 

Some 140,000 people were killed when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city on Aug. 6, 1945.

Obama called for a world without nuclear weapons after visiting Hiroshima Peace Park Memorial, where he spent a short time in the site's museum and then solemnly placed a wreath at the arched monument.

Yokohama History Museum

Yokohama History Museum
Tsuzuki-Ku, Yokohama City

The museum has relics from pre-historical Jomon, Yayoi and Sekijidai leading up to current times. Adjacent to the museum and opened as the external grounds is an actual Yayoi archaeological dig along with the building rebuilt on the same spots where ancient ones from 2000 years ago once stood. The Yayoi period (弥生時代, Yayoi jidai) is the Iron Age era of early Japan.

Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum (Tatemonoen)

The Edo Tokyo Open-air Museum (Taemonoen)

The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum Koganei Park, Tokyo, Japan, is a museum of historic Japanese buildings. The park includes many buildings from ordinary middle class Japanese to the homes of wealthy powerful families which are all open for personal viewing.

The museum enables visitors to enter and explore a wide variety of buildings of different styles, periods, and purposes, from upper-class homes to pre-war shops, public baths (sentō), and Western-style buildings of the Meiji period, which would normally be inaccessible to tourists or other casual visitors, or no longer found in Tokyo.

Ghibli Studio animator Hayao Miyazaki used buildings at the site as inspiration for his film Spirited Away which won Best Animated Feature Film at the 75th Academy Awards in 2002. A photo Miyazaki is next to the trolly car within the entrance of the museum.

Yakitori, 焼き鳥: Iseya, いせや、Tokyo Metro, 東京都、Musashino, 武蔵野、Kichijoji, 吉祥寺

Shirakawa-go - Gifu, Prefecture Japan

The Historic Villages of Shirakawa-gō and Gokayama are one of Japan's UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The site is located in the Shirakawa river valley stretching across the border of Gifu and Toyama Prefectures in central Japan.

These villages are well known for their houses constructed in the architectural style known as gasshō-zukuri (合掌造り). The Gasshō-zukuri, "prayer-hands construction" style is characterized by a thatched and steeply slanting roof resembling two hands joined in prayer. The design is exceptionally strong and, in combination with the unique properties of the thatching, allow the houses to withstand and shed the weight of the region's heavy snowfalls in winter.

Minka (民家 "house of the people") are houses constructed in any one of several traditional Japanese building styles,  were the dwellings of farmers, artisans, and merchants. Minka are characterized by their basic structure, their roof structure and their roof shape. Minka developed through history with distinctive styles emerging in the Edo period.

Gasshō style roof binding

The houses are large, with three to four stories encompassed between the low eaves, and historically intended to house large extended families and a highly efficient space for a variety of industries. The densely forested mountains of the region still occupy 96% of all land in the area, and prior to the introduction of heavy earth-moving machinery, the narrow bands of flat lands running the length of the river valley limited the area available for agriculture and homestead development. The upper stories of the gasshō houses were usually set aside for silk farming, while the areas below the ground floor were often used for the production of gunpowder.

Pullys used to bind the roof

The primary purpose of shaping minka roofs in this manner was to accommodate the extensive precipitation experienced in many parts of Japan. A steeply peaked roof allows rain and snow to fall straight off it, preventing water from getting through the roof into the home, and to a lesser extent preventing the thatch itself from getting too wet and beginning to rot.

---

An Ocha-ya (geisha tea house) on the Shirakawa river in the Gion district of Kyoto.

The Shirakawa River is a river flowing into Kyoto prefecture of Japan and a tributary of the Kamo River. Its name means "white river" in Japanese, due to the fine-grained white sand that it carries from the hills east of Kyoto.

Directly before entering the Kamo River, it passes through the geisha district of Gion, where many traditional establishments, such as ocha-ya (geisha tea houses) and restaurants, line the river.

---

Tokyo Metropolitan Library

The Metropolitan Central Library is located in the Minami-Azabu section of Minato. The library was founded in 1973 at the current location of the central branch. 

The library is free and open to the public, although not all collections are available to all people at all times. The library also has arrangements with over 300 smaller local public libraries allowing interlibrary lending privileges. Although not as deep as the collection of the National Diet Library, The Tokyo Metropolitan Library houses a large collection of books, periodicals, and audio-visual materials.

The Central Branch holds 240,000 volumes, including a large collection of rare materials, showcasing over 40,000 documents pertaining to the history of Tokyo (Edo), some of which date back over 400 years. Books are divided by subject - Reference, Social Science, Humanities, Natural Science. Of note is the opening of a "regional history research center".

The Hibiya Branch holds 130,000 volumes, including 4,000 foreign volumes. It also maintains holdings of over 1,000 different magazine periodicals and nearly 200 different newspapers.

Central Branch: 5-7-13 Minami-Azabu Minato, 106-8575. It is located in the Arisugawa-no-miya Memorial Park. Accessible by foot from Hiroo Station on the Subway Hibiya Line, Azabu-Juban Station on the Subway Namboku Line, and the Azabu-Juban Station on the Toei Subway Oedo Line.

Soryu Grape Farm and Winery - Yamashi Prefrecture Japan

Soryu Winery is located in Koshu City, Katsunuma town in Yamanashi Prefecture. It was founded by the families of Masanari Takano and Ryuken Tsuchiya, who traveled to France to learn the proper French winemaking techniques and then pioneered winemaking in Japan. Soryu is one of Katsunuma’s most historic wineries, with annual production equivalent to 1.2 million bottles.

The name of the winery "Soryu Budoshu" originated from "Soryu" which is the God to protect the Eastern Gods protecting East/West/South/North from the ancient Chinese lore and is also the God that brings luck. The winery has been making great wines since 1899 in Katsunuma which has a great climate for growing the best grapes for Japanese wine.

Yūrei-Yōkai-ga Complete Works, Sogo Museum of Art Yokohama

SOGO MUSEUM OF ART exhibition if about 160 works et specter ghost images of ukiyo-e, such as ghost picture scroll.

Yūrei

Yūrei (幽霊) are figures in Japanese folklore, analogous to Western legends of ghosts. The name consists of two kanji, 幽 (yū), meaning “faint” or “dim” and 霊 (rei), meaning “soul” or “spirit.” Alternative names include 亡霊 (Bōrei) meaning ruined or departed spirit, 死霊 (Shiryō) meaning dead spirit, or the more encompassing 妖怪 (Yōkai) or お化け (Obake).

Yōkai

Yōkai (妖怪, ghost, phantom, strange apparition) are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for “mysterious” and “weird”.[citation needed] Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them. Often they possess animal features (such as the Kappa, which is similar to a turtle, or the Tengu which has wings), other times they can appear mostly human, some look like inanimate objects and others have no discernible shape.

JAXA Tsukuba Space Center, Tsukuba, Japan

The Tsukuba Space Center (TKSC) is the operations facility for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) located in Tsukuba Science City in Ibaraki Prefecture.

The facility opened in 1972 and serves as the primary location for Japan's space operations and research programs. Japanese astronauts involved in the International Space Station are trained in part here in addition to the training they receive at the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas.

JAXA, The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is Japan's national aerospace agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and the launch of satellites into orbit, and is involved in many more advanced missions, such as asteroid exploration and possible manned exploration of the Moon.

The Tanegashima Space Center (TNSC) was established in 1969, when the original National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) was formed.

The TNSC is the largest rocket-launch complex in Japan (9,700,000 square meters) and is located in the south of Kagoshima Prefecture, along the southeast coast of Tanegashima. It is known as the most beautiful rocket-launch complex in the world, located on Tanegashima island located 115 km south of Kyushu. The activities that take place at TNSC and include assembly, testing, launching and tracking of satellites, as well as rocket engine firing tests. It is Japan's largest space development center.

---

Funny Pluto graffiti next to the Tsukuba Japan Planetarium @neiltyson twitter.com/BillWils0n/sta…

— Bill Wilson (@BillWils0n) March 20, 2013

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum collects and displays the belongings left by the victims, photos, and other materials that convey the horror of the world's first atomic bombing of populated area on August 6, 1945.

Atomic (Genbaku) Dome

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on 6 August 1945. The building was the only one left standing near the epicenter of the bomb blast, albeit in skeletal form.

Through the efforts of many people, including those of the city of Hiroshima, the build has been preserved in the same state as immediately after the bombing. Not only is it a stark and powerful symbol of the most destructive force ever created by humankind; it also expresses the hope for world peace and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons.

The Peace Memorial Park, in which the Dome is the principal landmark, was laid out between 1950 and 1964. The Peace Memorial Museum in the Park was opened in 1955. Since 1952 the Park has been the scene of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony, held annually on 6 August.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial is a stark and powerful symbol of the achievement of world peace for more than half a century following the unleashing of the most destructive force ever created by humanity. It was preserved in that state when reconstruction of the city began. In 1966 the Hiroshima City Council adopted a resolution that the Atomic Bomb Dome should be preserved in Perpetuity.

Itsukushima - Miyajima, Hatsukaichi - Hiroshima, Japan

Itsukushima is an island in the western part of the Inland Sea of Japan, located in the northwest of Hiroshima Bay. It is popularly known as Miyajima the Shrine Island, best known for its famous "floating" O-torii gate. The shrine complex is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Japanese government has designated several buildings and possessions as National Treasures. The area designated for World Heritage comprises of the 431 hectares including the Itsukushima Shrine, and the adjacent sea, and the Mt Misen Primeval Forest (National Treasure) to the rear.

The O-torii Gate is about 16 meters in height and weighs about 60 tons. The main pillars are 9.9 meters in circumference, and made of natural camphor trees, while the four supporting pillars are made of natural cedar. The present O-torii was erected in 1875, and the eighth since the Heian Period (the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185).

According to records, the shrine was established in the time of Empress Suiko. The warrior-courtier Taira no Kiyomori gave the shrine its present form. In 1555, Mōri Motonari defeated Sue Harukata at the Battle of Miyajima. Toyotomi Hideyoshi built a large building, the Senjō-kaku, on a hill above the shrine.

The first shrine buildings were probably erected in the 6th century, and the shrine has been destroyed many times. The present shrine dates from the mid-16th century, and follows the earlier 12th century design. That design was established in 1168, when funds were provided by the warlord Taira no Kiyomori.

The island of Itsukushima, including the waters around it (part of Seto Inland Sea), are within Setonaikai National Park. This sea is affected by strong tides. At low tide, the bottom of the sea is exposed past the island's O-torii. At high tide, the sea covers all the previously exposed mud and fills areas underneath the shrine.

The Itsukushima Shrine at high tide, when it appears to float on the water. The shrine was designed and built on pier-like structures over the bay so that it would appear to be floating on the water, separate from the sacred island, which could be approached by the devout.

---

Mt. Misen is the highest peak on Miyajima island, 535 meters above sea level. Since the year 806 it has attracted devout worshipers. The natural environment has been kept intact which creates magnificent scenery.

Mt. Misen Ropeway (unfortunately it was a rainy day)

The Miyajima Ropeway is a network of gondolas that traverse the island, which is rare and unique in Japan and is often described as walking in the sky.

Wait at the ropeway station platform between gondola changes

Kiezu-no-Reikado Hall is located about 20 minutes on foot from Shishiiwa Ropeway Station. The holy fire that Kobo Daishi lit for his ascetic training has been kept burning for over 1,200 years in Reikado Hall. The hall has been designated a "Lover:s Sanctuary" as the flame is akin to the eternal fire of love.

Kiezu-no-Reikado Hall

Akira Kurosawa - Rashomon

Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese drama directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film depicts the rape of a woman and the murder of her samurai husband through the widely differing accounts of four witnesses, including the bandit/rapist, the wife, the dead man (speaking through a medium), and lastly a woodcutter, the one witness that seems the most objective and least biased. Kurosawa when asked by his assistants to explain his script explained “Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. This script portrays such human beings—the kind who cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are better people than they really are.”

My Neighbors the Yamadas

My Neighbors the Yamadas is a an extremely funny feature-length animated film directed by Isao Takahata released by Studio Ghibli July 17, 1999. This is the first Studio Ghibli film that was digitally produced without using cells. The movie captures Japanese daily life in a painted watercolor style accomplished by drawing three times the normal number of frames. The film plays like a series of comedy or sitcom episodes, many ending with a haiku poem. Released in the United States by Disney, I recommend watching the subtitled version, which captures the true spirit of the dialog in Japanese much better than the English dubbing and Hollywood character acting. 

Tokyo Mizube Line Water Bus Transportation

The Tokyo Mizube Line is water-bus transportation service, which navigates around the Sumida and the Arakawa rivers, Odaiba area and Kasai Rinkai Park. Other than general transportation service, they have many kinds of special cruising to enjoy Japanese events such as cherry blossom viewing in Spring and fireworks in Summer.

Himiko Interior

The Water Bus “Himiko” Produced by Leiji Matsumoto,one of the best renowned Japanese cartoonists.   “Himiko” is a completely unique water bus with its streamline shaped body with large windows. Himiko is named after Queen Himiko who was the first recognized independent lady in Japanese history.

Himiko Routes

Himiko runs from Asakusa to Odaiba Seaside Park, to Toyosu and then back to Asakusa. During the daytime the futuristic ship runs through old Edo and modern Tokyo while enjoying 360-degree panoramic view. At night the floor panels are lit up and emphasize the ship’s sophisticated design.

Hotaluna Cruise

Himiko has a promenade deck to enjoy the scenery outside the ship. At night the Hotaluna Cruise lights up the back of the window glass on the rear ship emitting a pale light emitted during evening and night, so that it lights up like a firefly. The name Hotaluna is a combination of  Hotaru  the Japanese word for 'firefly', and Luna the latin goddess of the moon. Reiji Matsumoto designed and named Hotaluna to represent a firefly shining mysteriously at night under the moon while travelling across the Sumida River".