Blog #6: Tripadvisor

Hi! I'm Saori Nakagawa. Let me introduce about one of my favorite social media.
It's called Tripadvisor.

Tripadvisor is a community for tourists. In this community, we share experiences of some trip that we've ever taken and help each other plan next trip.

For example, if you want to visit and stay somewhere you don't know well, you put the name of place into the page, and the list of many hotels, restaurants or most popular places there with reviews and rating that other users posted before are showed.

 It is sure that it helps you find comfortable, enjoyable places. In addition to it, you can also post photos and see ones of others. There are many nice photos in this community, so I think all of us, not only tourists, can enjoy this site. We can feel as if we went to some places where we have never visited  by seeing the experiences and photos. This site also used as app for free. I use it when I visit anywhere. If you want to experiment what you never have, I recommend you to visit this site. Get the truth, then go!

Link is here.

Blog#2: Takarazuka

Hello, I'm Kyoko. In this time I want to tell you about Takarazuka. On May 24, I went looking to a play of the snow class of Takarazuka with my friends. We could get the tickets for free because a teacher of European world's history asked her friend who belonged to fan club. Fortunately, the seats of tickets were S on the second floor! Thus we could look over whole of the stage from there. Though I watched their play in European world's class on DVD, the live play was quite different. Their performances were all wouderful such as play, song, dance and costume. Of course they were all women, but women who played men looked like real men in the meantime. I was very impressed in their performances, so I want to go looking their stage again in the near term.

Blog #5: Hotel Marques de Riscal

Hi! I'm Saori Nakagawa.
Let me introduce about one of the Frank O. Gahry's works, Hotel Marques de Riscal. The building is located in Elciego, in the Rioja region of Spain.

The hotel was built in 2006. As the name implies, the building is used as a hotel. The roof is called Gehry's wing. Do you know why the roof was colored like this? The area where Hotel Marques is located has been known for production of wine that good tastes, and the hotel also has winery. So, the roof was colored mixture of red and purple associated with a color of wine.

A view from the restaurant is very good. Not only people who stay at Hotel Marques but just visit the winery can enjoy lunch or dinner at the restaurant that is located the top floor of the hotel with enjoying their good tasting wine and the fantastic view. I want to visit and stay Hotel Marques sometime!

Link is here!

Blog#4: EMP Museum

Hello, this is Kyoko. I chose EMP Museum, Experience Music Project Museum, from many of  Franc Gehry's works because I was attracted by its shape when I looked at the picture.

This architecture is in Seattle, and was founded in 2000. This picture is its view from the Seattle Center. This museum is a place where you can see the history and exploration of popular music in the Pacific Northwest. For example, there are many exhibits of Jimi Hendrix. (He was a musician who brought musical evolution in Seattle.) Besides, you can also enjoy making your original music video and CD and trying real live.

At first, when I looked at the pictures of EMP Museum, I thought it was like building covered with clothes of white, red and blue. However, researching the architecture, I saw that it is wonderful buildhing for people who love music. There are many exhibits such as guitar and gallery of Jimi Hendrix, great musician in Seattle, so probably people who is fan of Jimi will also enjoy a lot. I'm interested in music, too, so I want to go there if I have a chance to visit Seattle.

If you want more information, check this URL.

homepage of EMP Museum: http://www.empmuseum.org/

Blog #4 :AGO

   Hi, I’m Junsei Goseki. This time I’ll introduce the Frank Gehry’s latest work,

‘Art Gallery of Ontario’, which people usually call it ‘AGO’ in short.
It is located in Toronto, ON M5T 1G4, Canada.
I can see China town and Victoria University near this museum on the Geogle Map and it’s really attractive to me, To imagine that we have such a beautiful art museum near our university, it’s so wonderful.

    This has been used for museum since it was opened in 1900.
In November 2008, it was under construction for expansion of building and Frank
Gehry was assigned to take charge of this project.
Though Frank was born in Toronto, this was his first work in Canada, this is also his latest work. It’s reopened in November 2008, it took only 3days that sixty eight thousand people visited here with the service that offered free-charge admission and extended its open hours.

    About exhibitions, AGO is famous for its abundant collections of Canadian art, Inuit and Native art from past and present. For other representative art works, there are Henry Moore, who was a British sculptor, Picasso and European art.

    I think it’s a great collection of works by great artists and the building itself is also a beautiful work, so it’s compilation of great art works.

    As I see pictures of inside and outside appearance of this museum, tough I don’t know much about it, it seems to be resourcefully built that we’ve learned in a lecture during our class. Because it seems that they used simple and common steel and wood frames for design. Of course I think they’re sound and also beautiful.

I’m thinking I’ll go to Canada to study next year. I’m not sure yet about it but if I chose to go Toronto, I would never miss a chance to go here.

You can get more information hereAGO Official Website

Blog #3: Election in Greece

Hi, I'm Saori Nakagawa. On June 17, Greece's government will hold election. I suppose that all of you know the nation is facing financial crisis, and it is causing the big problem in the euro zone. The election will be held between the one party in Greece which claims to keep financial austerity as ever and the other which claims to take austerity away. The result of this election could change the future of EU, especially the nations in Europe which have been helping Greece financially, thus people all over the world are paying much attention to it. I think that the election could affect Japanese economic as well as European one, so Japanese people should keep an eye on this event more carefully.

Link is here.

#2: Tokyo Skytree

      Hi, I’m Junsei. This week, I went to Tokyo Skytree.
It was very crowded regardless of weekdays, though it was surely the highest building what I’ve ever seen in Japan.
I took the route from Oshiage Station to get Tokyo Skytree on foot.
It’s a great view to see the tower when you go up from the stairs of the station.
We still can feel an atmosphere of Shitamachi even though this modern building showed up there.
      Off course, I didn’t have the reservation for entering the tower, I just did shopping around there. I really felt Skytree can be a good sightseeing area for tourists because it’s near Asakusa which is so famous for tourists and I really want to introduce this place if I have guests from foreign countries.

      　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Sky Tree photo from Oshiage Station.

　　　　　If you take a route from Oshiage Station to Skytree, you can see this strange building.
When I saw it in the first place, I guessed it was a museum.
But it was not. Answer is here. Before you check the answer, let's guess what it is!
 The Answer for question