Shopping Alley in Shinjuku

Daruma Dolls

End of Year Sales Campaign

Just walking

Christmas day is almost here and I am excited to go home to Tokyo. I really want to see the Isetan Department Store window display in person before it gets changed after Dec. 25. After being in a class about Exhibit Design, I’ve become especially interested in window displays. The Isetan windows currently show scenes from a Christmas story, illustrated by Finnish illustrator Klaus Haapaniemi. There is even a website that goes along with the store windows, but this is only viewable until Dec. 25th as well. Please hurry to take a look. It takes viewers through various scenes of the enchanting story.

As fall is transitioning into winter, the days are getting shorter and chillier. The other day, from our studios in the Design Center at school, the sky became a beautiful watercolor paintings of oranges and yellows. Just yesterday, Providence saw the first morning of snow.

Now with only a week left in the semester, I’m really busy with finals and getting all process work organized. It feels like an endless cycle of building models, sitting by the computer, finishing details, making back up, photographing and staying up late into the nights. Just…a…little….bit….more!

Here is another update on the funny Tokyo Metro Manner posters from their website. The make-up one is from November, and the drunkenness poster went up today. As the holiday season rolls around, let’s hope for good public behavior.

One of the best things about this chilly autumn season is going to see the Halloween Midnight Organ Concert at Brown University. I look forward to it every year. About 20 minutes before midnight, the dark Sayles Hall got crowded with students starting to sit/ lie down with pillows and blankets for the late night musical treat. Many were dressed in costume- I saw a Rubic’s cube and several Where’s Waldos. At the strike of midnight, zombie looking creatures came in though the main doors carrying a coffin- out from which rose Dracula (Mark Steinbach), who laughed menacingly before climbing the stairs to play the organ. What followed was a spooky Halloween- classical concert. In the middle of the event, some of the zombie “tomb kickers” rocked it out, singing the Monster Mash song. This is surely the best part of Halloween!

Last Saturday, the RISD Museum had their monthly Free For All Saturday event. On the last Saturday of every month, the museum lets you go in for free, and also hosts events for the general community. In response to a new exhibit opening called “Inner Cities,” an installation by Arnie Zimmerman, of ceramic figures building up architectural elements of a city, there was an outdoor event called “And we built a city together.” Children and families were decorating cardboard houses with fun screenprinted stickers of Providence Architecture. Each of the cardboard houses had long strips of paper attached to it where you could write your thoughts on the city. Then the houses were places upon cardboard hills to build up our city of Providence together.

I went with some friends to see the exhibition and we quickly got caught up in making some cardboard houses ourselves. It was fun just to take a break and color, cut,  draw with other children. Here’s by own house on Karin St. below!