Maishima Waste Disposal Plant

Today we paid a visit to the Maishima Waste Disposal Plant which lies in the eastern port area of Osaka, an hour cycle from our home. Visiting a waste disposal plant may not be at the top of your list of exciting things to do but the plant is well worth a visit, and is quite a sight to see!

The exterior was designed by the late Austrian artist Friedensrich Hundertwasser, known for his organic structures, and was designed to symbolize harmony between technology, harmony and art. The whole building looks like some strange theme park attraction with huge orange stripes representing flames on the outside.

We booked a guided tour around the plant, which took around two hours, and got to see the whole waste disposal process in action. The interior looks like a scene from a seventies sci-fi movie complete with machines with big dials and flashing lights! There are also plenty of buttons to push and the obligatory cute animated characters to keep kids happy.

Overall, a fascinating tour and well worth checking out, even if you only get to see the exterior!

The plant from afar

The Claw!

One of the control rooms

Not sure what he is supposed to be!

A model of the plant.

This reminds me of a scene from 'Aliens'

Another giant claw.

Not why this is here but it looks pretty.

Colour coded dispatch doors.

Osaka has more bicycles than any other city in Japan. Soon to be a few less.

Kirk to bridge.

Wonder what would happen if I press this....

View from one of the green roof tops.

The base of the tower

Looks like a Mondrian nightmare.

The entrance to the plant.

New Work / Poolga

Two new pieces of work by myself are now available to download for iphone and ipad from the great Poolga website. The work is part of an 'Unseen Agency' week on the site featuring works by many fantastic Unseen artists. See here for the Poolga site and check out more Unseen artists here. Here is a sneak preview:

Cloudbusting

Moonlight Fishing

Snow, shopping arcades and Kyoto.

As you may have noticed, its been a while since I last posted anything here, largely due to work commitments, so I thought I would post a quick rundown of anything noteworthy from the last two months.

To start off, here are some photos of the recent snowfall in Osaka city, the first proper snow I have seen in the city.

Next up is a visit to a cafe called Mole which is built inside the vaults of an old bank. The Cafe serves very good, if a little expensive coffee.

On a considerably less cold day, we recently visited Tenjinbashi-suji, supposedly the longest shopping arcade in Japan! We also made a brief stop to check out the nearby temple.

I made my second visit to Kyoto a few weeks back, in order to see an exhibition by the Japanese Illustrator Junzo Terada. The exhibition was held inside a large department store next to Kyoto station and was very impressive, with work ranging from posters to models and animation.

We also spent time browsing a number of craft shops in town.

The Exhibition flyer.

A Tanooki lined stairway

From the top of the stairway

Well that's about it for the update, hopefully I will find the time to write on a more regular basis, watch this space!