Marunouchi

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    Southern Crust: Japanese Snapper-Baker Not Loafing Around To Make Dough From Bread Down Under

    Photographer and baker Kazuaki Ono has combined his dual talents to create the Southern Crust exhibition at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Marunouchi until Oct. 31. Southern Crust showcases signature loaves from remarkable Australian bakeries that Ono photographs in iconic locations across Australia from Bondi Beach to Brighton Bathing Boxes. He’ll give a reception and talk show at the FCCJ tonight (Oct. 7) to detail his remarkable story, which includes operating Akipan, a bakery in Sydney offering super soft Japanese bread, since 2023. “Running Akipan as both the owner and head baker has given me a unique perspective, balancing the creativity of photography with the craftsmanship of breadmaking….

  • Sticky And Sweaty Before The Swelter

    It’s the rainy season in Tokyo now, but the forecast is for a wet weekend followed by a couple of weeks of sweltering temperatures. Even though it’s relatively cool, I’m sweating like a pig. I feel for our Aussie plants, many of which also struggle with the humidity of the Japanese summer. This week was an excruciatingly busy one and I made lots of blunders. Fortunately, our garden has plenty of beautiful flowers at the moment, and they provided some delightful sights. Amid the fumbles, I got a great look around at the Intermediatheque museum in the Kitte building in Marunouchi, and was thrilled by some of the slightly bizarre…

  • Strolling Through The Centuries In The World’s Largest City

    One of my great delights is that I get to work in an office located in the heart of Tokyo, the world’s largest city with a population of 37.4 million, and I’m never more than a few footsteps away from incredible historical highlight. I got to spend my lunch break learning about Kamakura Bridge, which is located in Tokyo’s central Marunouchi district, and which I discovered bears the scars of the first sustained air raids the Americans unleashed during World War II. There is a monument on the bridge noting that bullet marks remain from the November 1944 attack. The Americans would obliterate Tokyo in a series of sustained raids,…

  • Gifted With A Glorious Walk

    Not being overly busy and blessed with sublime weather, I got to take a walk around the office neighborhood in the central Tokyo district of Marunouchi, and it was simply spectacular. The skyscrapers were breathtaking and I loved the way they basked in the spring sunshine. Lots of pocket gardens were also little delights amid the concrete jungle, including one patch of Aussie plants. And the remarkable kubizuka (grave) of Taira no Masakado also provided a tremendous history lesson of the world’s biggest city, having started as the small fishing village of Edo.

  • Marvelous Marunouchi

    I’m loving life enormously at the moment, and a workplace in Marunouchi is helping in that. Marunouchi is the literal heart of Tokyo, being the closest district to the Imperial Palace, which is the reason why the city is Japan’s capital. It’s a delight rolling up to the office and feeling the centuries-long history of the area and adjacent Nihonbashi seeping in. My first day in Tokyo involved sitting down outside Tokyo Station, located in Marunochi, people watching while I waited to be collected. I love being able to look down from my workplace and see that spot, now a significantly different place than it was when I got here…

  • Charmed And Cheered

    Thanks to a minor quirk of fate, my life has turned completely around and I’ve gone from cursed to content, all within the space of a couple of months. For the first time in years I’ve got a great job in a prime location. My company values me and goes out of its way to make sure that I can produce the best I can to bring it the results its looking for. I’m incredibly blessed by colleagues, who go out of their way to help me bring out my best. But I have to admit that my entire career has been pretty much enchanted in terms of the people…

  • Tokyo’s Wonderfully Whirled With Aus

    Walking around central Tokyo over a couple of days this week, I got to discover a pocket garden filled with Aussie plants, including blooming grevillea and kangaroo paw. This little circular garden created a wonderful whirled of Aus, right in the Marunouchi business district. Flowers weren’t the only wonderful sights of the city. Walking around gifted me plenty of wonderful sights to see.