Getting up this morning was difficult as I had predicted. I slowly got ready and met the group at 8:50am as scheduled. Since we were planning to meet with Terunobu Fujimori this morning, I bought my gift to give to him, along with three other people. We made the 30 minute walk to Shinjuku Station, then caught the Chuo Line subway for 20 minutes. We were still in Tokyo but just more on the outskirts. We arrived to the station a bit early, so we had a chance to grab a bite to eat for breakfast. Shae and I went to a bakery we found in the station, and I bought a custard-filled pastry for breakfast and a chicken pita sandwich for later. The custard pastry was absolutely amazing, and I wish I could’ve bought more of them to bring back with me to the NOMYC. Anyways, after finishing up my breakfast, Fujimori Sensei showed up and walked us to one of his nearby projects. The project was a residential house that was nearly complete, except for the landscaping. The clients were already living in the house, but since the owner was on-site at the time of our arrival, we were able to go inside the house as well. The house had a very interesting copper shingled exterior, and the interior was very primal and natural. Though Fujimori nor the owner spoke any English, we were still able to learn a lot about the house and the architect-client relationship through Don and Norio’s translations. We gave two of gifts to the owner for being so generous in allowing us to visit his home, then we followed Fujimori to his own residence. Fujimori’s residence was a very interesting one. The exterior was all wood, and he had plants and flowers growing up the vertical surfaces and on the roof. The wood slats were designed so there were basically planters built-in to the walls. It gave the house a very interesting aesthetic. Fujimori invited us into his home, and we met his wife once inside. He took us up to the roof of his home so we could more closely see the interesting plants growing out of his house and enjoy the beautiful view from above. When we went back inside, Fujimori and his wife offered us lunch since they had already ordered sushi bento boxes from a nearby sushi restaurant. Good thing Fujimori is a very well-known and wealthy architect because those sushi bento boxes must have been really expensive. The sushi and sashimi was probably the highest quality of fish I have ever eaten, and it was just so good! I can’t even put into words how much I enjoyed that meal. There was a lot of sushi and sashimi in the box too, so I was barely able to finish it all. After lunch, we all gathered in Fujimori’s tea room, and his wife performed the act of serving tea to four people in our group. She properly made and served some matcha green tea, then she quickly made enough for the rest of us as well. The matcha was really good as well, and they also served chocolates immediately before to counter the bitterness of the matcha. It was an overall great experience. Before leaving, I gave my gift (a wooden Cal Poly pen) along with Zach’s candy gift to Fujimori’s sensei to show our appreciation.
Fujimori sensei led us back to the main road, and we said our farewells. He is a very famous and well-known architect in Japan, so I’m really glad I had the opportunity to meet him and see some of his projects. We took the train back to the NOMYC and almost everyone was tired by then. I took a short nap and woke up around 6pm. The rest of the night, I worked on my studio design project with my group. Norio, Shae, and I grabbed take-out at the Himalayan Curry House and brought it back to the NOMYC to eat. I got the spinach vegetable curry with plain nan since last time the chicken curry upset my stomach. The nan at that restaurant is definitely one of my favorites! We are scheduled to meet with Don in our individual groups tomorrow, and my group’s appointment is at 9:30am. I ended up not going to sleep until 4:30am, but I was on a roll and was able to get a lot done on my part of the project.
No comments:
Post a Comment