Category Archives: Others

Kotaro Yamada In Takayama-shi, Gifu Prefecture, wood ties created by a craftsman at a local carpentry shop, TS Sangyo, are drawing attention. The wearable wooden product is named “Nokutie.” It’s planned to go on sale by the end of November 2015 after some final tuning. Nokutie has five parts which are held together by a cord that runs through the parts. The cord is then tied to an elastic cord that goes around the shirt collar. It comes in 10 different locally-grown timbers including cherry wood, maple, chestnut and oak. The parts for one Nokutie are cut out of one piece of wood. This way, wood grain patterns are used … Continue reading →

Kotaro Yamada – “Flower is home of color” exhibition (Gifu-shi, Gifu Prefecture)  – The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, in Gifu Prefecture is now becoming a popular venue for enjoying close contact with plants and flowers as well as their various shades. The museum currently holds a special exhibition called “Art-maru-ket – Flower is home of color.” It allows visitors to have close contact with nature and enjoy seasonal change of flowers and plants arranged in a gigantic three-dimensional artwork directed by Katsuhiko Hibino, a 57-year-old well-known artist and curator of the museum. The artwork actually sits in the garden where people can come and enjoy walking free of charge. … Continue reading →

Kotaro Yamada Bunkyo-ku Educational Center in Tokyo is currently giving an awesome exhibition of chickens from all over the world. What you’ll see there are 150 very realistic taxidermy chickens of approximately 60 variants from the collection of the University Museum, the University of Tokyo. There are many rare ones, too. A red junglefowl, for example, is a bird of Southeastern Asia which is thought to be ancestral to the domestic chicken. Shokoku is a variety seen already in the Heian period, Shinkuro is an uncommon breed which is all black head to toe, and Dong Tao is a breed native to Vietnam and known for its abnormally thick legs. … Continue reading →

Kotaro Yamada Here in the agricultural water channel in the Kurume-shi, Fukuoka Prefecture, you’ll see young paddlers on canoes practicing almost every day. They are students of Fukuoka Prefectural Mizuma High School and members of the Canoe Club of the school. The channel of 20 meters wide and 1 kilometer long is calm and very quiet. It’s almost waveless and windless thanks to the bank. “The channel provides perfect conditions for practicing canoe and our students have an advantage in being able to practice almost every day even in the rough weather,” Kazuhiko Tomimatsu, a 43-year-old teacher of the high school and an advisor to the club, explained. Through repeated … Continue reading →