From Stephen Gill of conservation group People Together for Mt. Ogura (PTO): 5月18日（日曜日）：不法投棄撤去作業 18 May (Sun) Rubbish clearance 今回は、保津川や清滝川を見下ろすところに不法投棄されたゴミを片付けます。ボランティアのご参加、よろしくお願いいたします。 We need volunteers to help clear rubbish from oak forest along Rokucho Pass (Ogurayama), Kyoto. The Pass overlooks both Hozu and Kiyotaki … [Read more...]
ECHOES: Painting & Poetry Exhibition at KICH – February 25 ~ March 2
ECHOES is an upcoming poetry and art exhibition organized by the Hailstone Haiku Circle, and featuring the conservation efforts of PTO (People Together for Mt. Ogura). Click on the flyer below for details! H a i g a c o l l a b o r a t i o n Hailstone Haiku Circle is an international group founded in 2000 by Stephen Gill and centred on Kyoto. Its main activity is to … [Read more...]
A Trip to Inuyama
Here are some pictures from Inuyama in Aichi prefecture, which we visited last month. By clicking on the spherical images, you can explore a fully immersive 360 degree view. Inuyama Castle is supposed to be the oldest castle in Japan: the original fort was built in 1440, and the current structure was completed in 1537. However as you can see from the scaffolding in the … [Read more...]
Kawai Kanjiro’s House
This is the house of Kawai Kanjiro, a legendary potter and a key figure in the mingei or Japanese folk art movement. His beautiful wooden townhouse has been preserved as a memorial run by his family. The building itself and the garden are wonderful, but you can also see here many of his works: ceramics, sculptures, and woodcarvings. His kilns are preserved at the back of the … [Read more...]
A Trip into the Past at Meiji Mura
In 2011 McKinsey & Company commisioned 80 writers and thinkers to contribute to an anthology rather grandly titled Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future that Works. I bought my own copy after browsing through it at Kansai Aiport and reading Alex Kerr's piece "Japan after People". His contribution was a wry form of dystopian projection that took various current trends, … [Read more...]
