Week 6

This past week was the first of two travel weeks during this semester in East Asia. After Seoul, we visited Busan, as described in my previous blog post. This was our final destination in Korea—as a whole, I found Busan incredibly rich, both culturally and architecturally/visually. We then moved on to Fukuoka, our first city in Japan. Our stay in the area was short; we spent just 3 days attending walking tours, lectures, dining, and seeking out the local attractions before departing for Uno Port, a small port city fairly centrally located within the country. The port is an interstitial travel hub for several Japanese islands a short 30 minute ferry ride away. These islands—namely, the ones we visited were Naoshima and Teshima—are home to a number of architectural works. Specifically, the famous Japanese architect Tadao Ando centered much of his efforts in his later career around these islands, building museums, galleries, and other cultural spaces. Our primary mode of transportation on the islands was electric bike: needless to say, we had quite a fun time exploring with the class and on our own!