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On Christmas 1991 I went to Chichijima in the Ogasawara Island Group. The islands are governed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government but located about 1000 km south of the Japanese capital. There is no airport so the journey by the weekly supply ship takes about 28 hours from Tokyo, one-way! Most likely, for this reason, I was at that time the only tourist on the island.

As there were no hotels, I had arranged my stay with a family in Omura, the only small town on the island. Exploring the small community I made the acquaintance of Eiji Tanaka.

He told me that he used to be a broker at the Yokohama Commodity Exchange, however, one day he decided to change his life and consequently moved to Chichijima. Initially, he lived in a self-constructed treehouse in the jungle near the village but the townspeople were not at all thrilled about his living arrangement and gave him a small plot of land. He described how he used wooden packing crates to build the little house he lived in and from where he sold his self-produced souvenirs to the odd tourist. I bought some bars of lemongrass scented soap and the red T-shirt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonin_Islands

 

As seen in the skyscraper district of Roma EUR.

Would you visit Rome to see modern architecture? Most likely not. Yet, in my view, there are quite a number of  architectural gems around town that I believe would be well worth being put on anyone’s must see list while in the eternal city.

Modern Art XXI century – MAXXI

Having lived in Rome for almost ten years it’s absolutely embarrassing to admit the I can count my visits to local museums on the fingers of one hand. So my recent visit to the MAXXI museum of modern art was an unusual break in my Sunday routine.

Zaha Hadid’s remarkable masterpiece of swinging curves and straight lines, embedded and intertwined with the surrounding traditional neighbourhood beckons to spend an afternoon between the modern and the classic.