Utaku Zone Fanzine

Ok if I have to talk about fanzines, this is something kind of new for me. My first meet with a fanzine was at university, when the Workshop teacher assistant asked the class to make a fanzine with some magazine clippings, and it was very funny and an easy way to understand what a fanzine is. So now, as a teacher request I have to talk about a fanzine made by students of the Anime & Manga Translation & Betrayals CFG, it is called Utaku Zone and is related to Japanese pop culture and manga and anime topics. I liked a lot actually, I never had read a manga book, I know what it is because some friends use to read them, but I never tried to choose one and read it, actually once I were in a manga store, located in the Lyon Gallery in Providencia but I did not feel attracted to one in special. Anyway, the fanzine is very good, I like a lot the fun facts about Japanese culture in Chile, and the places where you can find some information or food related to the Oriental traditions. I hope the production group can keep doing this project and publish more editions of the fanzine, because I feel really attracted to the Japanese Pop culture and having this materials available to read any time is good to keep knowing more about this interesting culture.

The cover of the fanzine

The fanzine includes some tips about several ways to 

learn more of the Japanese culture in our country

This post interested me a lot, I think I will

visit this coffee bar.

Classmate’s Blog Review

The post of today will be a little bit different than the other ones, because the teacher requested to the class a review of the blog of one classmate, and by the list in the teacher´s blog I have to review the blog of Francisca Rojas. By the first sight her blog is very feminine, the colors she chose makes the blog’s appearance looks very light and calm, and she is very methodic with her posts. The blog has 10 publications in total, and every post, excepting the first one, have a picture associated, and two of the posts has three each one, so it counts with 13 images and some of them I think may be photos took by herself.But what catches my attention is that she always try to fit the images among the text, as a newspaper publication, and I like it, but I think sometimes it makes the blog looks a little messy, but I think it is because the tools that blogger gives to us to work are not the best ones for publications, and another detail is that she uses a different typesetting in each post and I think it makes the blog looks messy too. However the blog is very interesting and the posts are very dinamics and I like the way she explains her point of view of the things, that makes the blog very authentic.

The Blog!

Vegetables, Juices and Holm

My experience in Holm starts in something like this. It was a difficult morning, I where angry with my boyfriend because we had a little discussion, we both did not have classes that day and also had to go to Providencia to buy some things. So we decided to leave behind the anger and eat something in a restaurant, and I remembered that in  a book about interesting places to visit in Santiago, I read about a salad bar located in Providencia, very close to where we were in that moment, and we decided to go to lunch there. The salad bar Holm is a very interesting place, it owner is a hyperkinetic man who goes to buy to La Vega all the vegetables he uses to prepare the salads he sells at the bar. The salad offer is also very interesting, because so far away of the classic lettuce with lemon juice, you can pick one of the several exotic options in the menu board, or if you want to take the risk yourself can fix your plate with the ready-to-serve salads in the bar. The juices are also a wonderful excuse to visit Holm, because I do not want to do spoiler but my favorite until now is the apple-ginger-celery "Fresh Green Juice", and my boyfriend chose the "Powerful Energizing Juice" of beetroot-carrot-tomato. Holm is a perfect option to eat in a sunny day, or simply to drink a healthy and delicious juice, and the prices are very affordable, that is the best part!

The main entrance

The fresh vegetables are in full view of all the customers

The juices and salads at the bar

The place where the sea, wind and quiet meets

If I have to talk about beaches, this is all about a bittersweet experiences for me. First, I am from the seaside so spending some time in beaches near my house is something common for me, and I have been in other beaches along the country, and I have to be honest, I enjoy beaches but always something happen that makes my experience a little bit rare. But I do not want to talk about rare situations, so I have to say that I do not go to beaches  just for swimming or sunbathing, actually I prefer to walk  on the sand, observe the scenery and the marine wildlife, that results more interesting for me. But now I remember a visit to a beautiful beach I did with my family a few years ago -when my parents were still together- and it was a really good afternoon walk because that beach was very special, I do not know why but I think I am still in love with that place, the hidden essence it has and the quiet you find there, I am talking about the Matanzas Beach. This popular destination for surfers is located in the VI Region, at the north of the Cardenal Caro province and it belongs to the Navidad commune and is easy to arrive there by buses you can take in the nearby locations, for example from Rapel Village, La Boca Beach - which is a beautiful beach too- or also the Navidad Village and from Santiago it takes two and a half hours of trip. When I went there, in the bus I were watching the scenery and the lot of houses built around, actually this region is famous by the modern houses that people built there, even some TV personalities has its holiday homes there. But I think what most caught my attention was the quiet, the feeling of being alone, away from the hustle of the city, that unique opportunity of find yourself, and I think that is something you do not find anywhere. Matanzas is an special place, I have been in a very few places like that, and feels so sad let pass 7 years and still not go back there.

The view from the edge of the beach

The sea hits the rocks and produces a sound

that brings peace to my mind

The Rapel river mouth, nearby the beach, is

another visual spectacle

Amsterdam with Love

Since I was a child, I have been interested in visiting new places, I am not pretty sure why, actually if I have to be honest I do not enjoy too much to spend some time in a car or a bus or any conveyance. Anyway, back to the above, I have an special interest in visiting new places, of course is even more interesting if the culture of that place is different than mine, but until now I have to recognize I am not a big traveler, and I have never been in another country (it sounds so sad) but I feel lucky to have visited cities and villages in the North, Center and South of Chile. Now that I study architecture, my interest in new place is more related to the discipline too, and countries in Europe are more suitable for the development of my career, and Netherlands have been in my wish-list since a long time ago, specifically Amsterdam. This beautiful city is a romantic tourists destiny and a perfect mixture between the old architecture of the XVI and XVII century and the modern culture of Europe. Talking about architecture topics, the sustainability has been an important element in the development of the city and nowadays the people and the city authorities are very educated in the subject and disposed to continue with this development as a way to construct a society more friendly with the environment by the balance among the architecture, the life quality and the natural resources. This subject is something really interesting for me, and Amsterdam is just one of many cities that are already working with this sustainability parameters, in Europe and other continents. In a future I would love to travel to Netherlands, know its places and have a pleasure stay, but of course it would be nice to settle in Amsterdam, and work there as an architect in the sustainability area or in the town planning, and it would be great to move there with my boyfriend and work together. Anyway, the gay culture in Amsterdam is also a good excuse to move there.

Front of the Rijksmuseum and the iconic 

"I amsterdam" sign

The Amsterdam Canals at night

The Tram is part of the transport system of the city and a 

good response to more sustainable alternatives

The bikeways are also part of the transport system and the 

bicycle culture and its education starts at elemetary school

Inari's Million Red Torii

When I decided to study architecture, I never thought the huge imaginary around this beautiful career. At the beginning I started learning about my environment, from the architectural point of view, but now, when I am in my third year on this career, is necessary to question what is beyond that environment, beyond my limits -or the limits of the society that around me- so in this point my mind starts to thinking about what is out there, what is the architectural environment of another people, what is the matter or the important things in another countries to have in consideration. In the last time, I have been very interested in the Japanese culture, and of course, in the architecture of that beautiful country, and here I can say something very relevant for me and for this post, I do not have a favorite building to show in this post, because when I introduce myself in this amazing Japanese culture, I realized I really do not like what around me, because I see all that history of those beautiful temples in the Nippon Island and then I can not feel attracted by anything else.

So in this post is very glad for me to talk about a place I heard about for the first time two years ago, in my first year of college, in my class of "Architecture Theory", because my teacher traveled to Japan and came back with lots of histories, and among those she talk about the Fushimi Inari Taisha. This is one of the most popular sanctuaries in Japan and is the place dedicated to the Inari god, who used to be at first the goddess of rice, and then the patron of business. And that title of the god was the reason for each Japanese grateful of the riches given by Inari to donate to the sanctuary a Torii, which is a kind of arch, and today the Torii's quantity is amazing and it forms part of the constitution of the sanctuary. The principal building inside this huge place is the Inari's Temple, but there are many other buildings that sell food or souvenirs. Every year lots of tourists -Japanese and from the world- come to visit the beautiful buildings in the sanctuary, and of course the rest of the place, which includes the footpaths delimited by the Toriis and the alternative footpaths through a bamboo forest, and all those footpaths guides the people to the little sanctuaries present inside the complete Inari's sanctuary.

For me is fascinating this place, and all the details that compose it and is even more interesting to know the histories around this, and what it represent for the Nippon culture or why it is so important for the people of that country. I think that is something important for an architect, to know why is important the old places, the old buildings or parks or sanctuaries,  and only after correctly understand that, we can try to construct the continuation of the history.

thousand of Torii in a footpath

the figure of a fox -Kitsune- the messengers of Inari god, 

present in all the sanctuary

a big Torii, and the Inari's Temple background

the main entrance of the Inari's Temple

souvenirs are sold in many points inside the sanctuary,

these with the shape of a fox -Kitsune-

The Pop of Roy

If I have to talk about art, I think I can not decide for one or another piece of art or a painting. So for this post I am going to talk about some works of an artist I had to research a few years ago, and he is Roy Lichtenstein. I have to recognize I feel really attracted to the pop art, and when I was still studying at school (around four or five years ago) I had to do a work for the art class and I decided to research about the complete work of the American artist Roy Lichtenstein. He born in New York in 1923, and dead in 1997 in New York too. He dedicated his career to the pop art, graphic art and sculptures , and he is known for his large-scale interpretation of the comic art, and also the re-interpretation of figures of TV commercials and advertisings. So here is where I feel more interested, because I love the works he did with this techniques, the simplicity he apply on his paintings and the way he got a perfect mix between the interpretations of different figures on comics and publicity of that age. The color he used are so vibrant and attractive and I personally think it is a plus to all his works, because that is the essence of pop art, the bright colors present in every painting or sculpture. I also think the work of Roy is a good reflection of the lifestyle of the age when he created most of their pieces, is the golden age of New York City, when people started to feel more attracted to have good art in their own houses, and talk about more interesting themes, to show their high life status. I can even say the Snob People born in those years and it is very present in this art, but that is another theme and I will not talk about that in this post.

"woman in bath" - 1963

"stepping out" - 1978

"interior with mirrored wall" - 1991

"interior with red wall" - 1991

"girl with hair ribbon" - 1965