Maishima Sludge Center

If you have been to Kansai International Airport in Japan, you might have noticed two very distinct towers along the way.

One is color blue and that is what I’m going to blog about.

This building was designed by the late Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

So what is this building?

This is actually Osaka’s water recycling facility for underground water. Thus the color blue, it is suppose to represent water.

Touring the facility is free but requires a reservation. Tour is mostly done in Japanese but you can ask an English audio guide during the reservation

Let’s take a tour of the facility.

A wall painting of the facility

The staff working so hard :p.

The tour was only within the building but the weather was really nice and we had a really nice tour guide that he decided to take us all the way to the rooftop and show us around there too.

A view from the rooftop.

This tower actually contains 4 or was it 6 exhaust pipe.

After walking around the rooftop we went down on the base of the tower and continued our tour there. I’m not sure if this is still part of the official tour but hey I’m not complaining.

A storage area for the Sludge.

The base of the blue tower.

The back area of the facility.

This facility only recycles Underground water for Osaka City not Osaka Prefecture.

The by product are now being research to be used for pot making but some are actually used as construction material so nothing is thrown away.

It was really a very educational tour around this facility.

If you live in Osaka City, this is where your monthly payment goes for underground water treatment and of course your tax.

Retro Osaka Buildings : Arai Building

新井(Arai) Building was original a bank back in 1922. It then became a restaurant in 1976 but unfortunately due to some safety issues the restaurant closed.

In 2005, a patry shop , Gokan opened in the first floor.

The building has 4 floors and 1 basement floor. Currently the upper floors are now office space for rent.

After we left Ikoma Building, we walked about 5 minutes passing by Nomura Building and met the building manager of Arai Building.

Walked up to the second floor and check some of the offices there. No getting inside though, just a peek. Then we walked all the way to the top floor and got a short history and overview of the building.
Going up!

The hallway!
A cat design in one of the offices

A short description of the window (?)

I found yelp !

Here too!

It was a fun day. I got to see another side of Osaka’s Historical Buildings and get to checkout how it looks inside.

Retro Osaka Buildings : Ikoma Building

Hello hello , long time no hear or write. Had a few adventures lately and hopefully I would be able to share them with you.

Let’s start with the latest one.

Had the oppurtunity to join an event organized by Yelp Osaka to visit two of the historical buildings in Osaka.

Out first stop is Ikoma Building. Ikoma Building was built in 1930, so now it’s about 85 years old. It has fortunately WW II. Ikoma Building is a watch store. It has 5 stories and 1 basement.
Currently, the 2nd floor all the way to the top is now office space for rent. The basement holds some of its historical artifacts. One of which is the very first signboard. Some old clocks and even the thing that is used for fixing clocks. The building is not open to the public so I felt really fortunate to be able to see inside and walked along the corridors , stairs of this building and felt walking back into 1930 Japan. Very thankful for Yelp Osaka for giving me the opportunity to join this amazing event. Let’s take a short tour.  
Looking up.

When I got to there, I saw Yelp Osaka Community Manager in 1930’s Fashion, could not help myself and took a picture of him
First stop is the basement, where we met the building managers and listen to short history of the building. I got curious about this thing and found out later that this is used to repair watches.

Some old pictures of long ago:
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Then we continued to the rooftop where we could see the old clock tower. It has undergone repair and the inside has been modernized but it has retained it’s original form.

Old and new.
Osaka Yelp Community Manager and Ikoma Building Managers.

From there we slowly made our way down and found this really beautiful stained glass. This was used to be in the front but to preserve it, they move it here
Down we go..

Yelp Members

Almost there.

From Ikoma Building we moved to the next one and will be on the next post 🙂

Summer 2014: A Glimpse of Matsumoto Castle

First of all Happy Happy New Year Everyone. I hope everybody had a great new year celebration, I will be posting about how I celebrated my new year later on but for now, let me continue about what I did last summer :).

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The next day, after visiting Kurobe Dam, Miss Y and I decided to check out Matsumoto Castle but unfortunately there was a 2 hours wait to get into the castle itself so we just took a short tour outside. Just like Osaka Castle, the fee is only required when you enter the main castle, so touring around the castle ground is free.

Let’s begin.

The water lilies.

Side View of the Castle.

The Castle.

So when you are in Matsumoto City, make sure to include a short visit to the castle.

Weekly Photo Challenge : Horizon

Last week Japan was visited by two typhoons, thankfully it did not fully enter the country and we were spared. By Saturday, there were still rain clouds looming in the sky and some drizzle here and there. I was in Kyoto that time visiting a friend and on my way back home I met with another friend and had a short walk around Gion and was very lucky to witness a very beautiful rainbow in the Horizon.

The next day, I have to do some errands and on my way to meet up with T for lunch , I could not help admiring this view of KTV ( Kansai TV).