Spoon & Tamago

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Take 10 minutes for yourself with hibi incense

All over Japan, incense is used for its meditative and purifying qualities, as well as for its important role in spiritual and ancestral rituals, such as lighting incense before greeting ancestors at the family shrine.

As legend would have it, incense first came to Japan when an aromatic log drifted ashore on Awaji Island in 595 CE. After locals discovered its fragrant properties, news quickly spread to governmental officials, and soon burning incense was all the rage amongst Japanese court royalty. Today, Awaji Island produces more than 70% of Japan’s incense!

Gifu Media Cosmos: Toyo Ito’s Beautiful New Library in Japan

August 16, 2016 / Johnny / Comments Off

photos courtesy Nippon Design Center

Last year, a brand new community center and library opened to the public in Gifu, located in central Japan. On the morning of the opening ceremony, over 300 people waited out in the rain to see Minna no Mori (“Everyone’s Forest”) Gifu Media Cosmos – the library of the future.

Park Pens: twigs packaged to look like stationery

August 15, 2016 / Johnny / Comments Off

The ground was the canvas and twigs were our paint brushes. We would search for the perfect fallen branch – not too thin that it would snap, but not too thick that it was uncomfortable – to create wonderful compositions in the dirt. Just thinking about it makes me want to be a kid again. Which is what Japanese art director Nezi Sato was surely thinking when he came up with his playful and hopelessly charming project, Park Pens.

Inside the New Offices of Japanese Fashion Giant Start Today

August 10, 2016 / Johnny / Comments Off

photos by Koji Fujii / Nacasa and Partners Inc.

Start Today is Japan’s 3rd largest fashion company and operator of the country’s largest e-commerce site Zozotown. And it’s made only more famous by Yusaku Maezawa, the founder and now one of Japan’s youngest billionaires who made headlines in May for a shopping spree at a Christie’s auction where he snapped up almost $100 million worth of art.

Less than 6 months earlier, Maezawa’s company continued its expansion by opening up a new office in the posh Aoyama district of Tokyo.

Yuri Uenishi’s Beautifully Minimalist Ad for Ping-Pong

August 9, 2016 / Johnny / 1 Comment

Table Tennis, or Ping Pong, as it is more affectionately called, is heating up over in Rio. In fact, “it was the most fun I’ve had at the Games so far,” said a writer for Wired who is over there now. And as Japan’s own Ai Fukuhara advances to the quarterfinals, Ping Pong is shaping up to make quite an impact.

Illustrated Internal Bodily Functions in Ukiyo-e From the 1800s

August 9, 2016 / Johnny / 1 Comment

Inshoku Yojo Kagami (飲食養生鑑) by Utagawa Kunisada. Late 19th C. | click images to enlarge

Ukiyo-e, or “pictures of floating worlds” were woodblock prints that became wildly popular in 17th -19th century Japan. The diverse subject matters ranged from travel scenes and landscapes to flora, erotica and even medical prints. And for a select group of artists who created a series of personified anatomical depictions of internal bodily functions, it would appear that being a great artist wasn’t enough: they also had to be immersed in the inner-workings of human body.

House Vision 2: an arena for rethinking homes of the future

August 6, 2016 / Johnny / Comments Off

“This isn’t just about housing. The house is merely an arena where different industries can come together.” That’s Kenya Hara, the luminary Japanese designer, talking – 2 years ago – about his ambitious House Vision project. Now he’s picking up where he left off with House Vision 2, a similar initiative to rethink housing by pairing various companies with some of Japan’s top architects and designers. The result is a sprawling installation of homes, now on display for the public, that are all built to real life scale.

Photographs of the Handheld Bamboo Fireworks at Gion Matsuri

August 4, 2016 / Johnny / Comments Off

Summer is the season for fireworks and in Japan, tens of thousands of people gather to watch the thunderous sparks light up the warm evening skies. But there’s one fireworks festival that’s not quite like any other: the Gion Matsuri in Toyohashi, which, each year, takes place on the 3rd Friday of July.

Soy Shape: soy sauce dishes that create 3D optical illusions

August 1, 2016 / Johnny / Comments Off

“Soy Shapes are soy sauce dipping dishes that take your sushi eating experience and food presentation to the next level.” That’s Duncan Shotton, a Tokyo-based product designer describing his latest, whimsical creation.

Live in a MUJI House of Windows 2 Years For Free

July 29, 2016 / Johnny / 1 Comment

A MUJI House for the price of “on the house”? That’s right. And it comes with MUJI furniture, MUJI cooking ware, MUJI stationary and everything else you would need. Sounds pretty good right? Well, 4 years after offering one lucky family the same deal, our favorite minimalist lifestyle retailer is back with a lottery in which the winner gets to live in a brand new, fully-furnished MUJI Window House (located in Kamakura) for 2 years, for free.