AP/Shiodome

I went to visit the Associated Press office (in Shiodome) for the first time today. Now, I don't know how you all feel about Shiodome, but I think it is a marvelous thing. There was a lot of protesting about 'destroying a historic community', but that's rubbish. It was just a big community of Pencil buildings and crap low inefficient deteriorating development. What they've built in Shiodome now, while 'not Japanese', certainly is nice. The Oedo line Shiodome station was featured in a Tokyo architecture book that I found awhile back, and noted Ken　Yokogawa's minimalist style. The whole area is really an interesting study in urban development. There are a lot of mixed interior and exterior spaces, much like Roppongi Hills that aren't suffocating as malls can be, but not like walking down the street where you have no escape from the elements. I have nothing but praise for the whole area. It's something that only in a place as dense as Tokyo is possible. I dream of razing of the Mall of America, and building something as chic and cool as Roppongi hills or shiodome like in Minneapolis. Now, if they just keep going with the transit system they're building...

When we tried to go up to the AP office, they were filming a commercial for DHL, and for some reason, some idiot had one of the backlights beaming down the up escalator, and it just about burned out my retinas while I was waiting for my coworkers.

At the AP office, I ran out of meishi, partly because my office gave me one sided japanese and one sided English meishi...and I'm the only one.