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Award Winning “The Birth of Sake” at the 2016 Ashland Independent Film Festival
One of my favorite films from the 2016 Ashland Independent Film Festival, The Birth of Sake, is showing on PBS over the next few days. See the trailer and check your local listings here.
I spent this past weekend at the annual DMB Gorge shows. This was my first time seeing Dave since the 1997 Bridge School Benefit with Neil Young. I guess I made up for those missing 20 years by seeing him three nights in a row. This was my first time at the Gorge Amphitheatre. What an amazing place!
Anyway, more photos to come here.
Visiting this place was not on our agenda. However, when we passed St Pancras on our way to the British Library it looked so incredible that we took a look inside. Wow!
Something seemed familiar about St Pancras so I Googled “st pancras harry potter” just now and sure enough, I found out this wasn’t the first time I had seen this hotel before:
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Kura means storehouse. These buildings were common during the Edo Era for merchants, or others with a bit of money, to store their valued possessions. They weren’t made out of wood, like most buildings in Japan at the time, so they could survive fires that frequently wiped out communities. You still see them occasionally when you get out into the Japanese countryside. However, in big cities, like Tokyo, they are now exceedingly rare.
This house, in Central Tokyo, was a bit north of my Nishi-Waseda apartment, maybe in Takada or Zoshigaya–I don’t remember exactly anymore. I’m not sure if they built the house around the kura, or if they built the kura with the house and merely designed it to look old. The entire property screams, “I have valuables that need protecting!”
Hideyoshi Toyotomi Statue @ Osaka Castle’s Hokoku Shrine
Hideyoshi Toyotomi began construction of Osaka Castle in 1583. Construction was completed just prior to his death. His family (the Toyotomi clan) held the area until Tokugawa took over in 1615 and the Edo Period began. The Hokoku Shrine was built in his honor on the Osaka Castle grounds late in the 19th Century.
Chilling in Kongens Have