1.
Umeda Station
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Umeda Station is a railway station located in Kita-ku in the northern commercial center of Osaka, Japan. It is the busiest station in Western Japan, serving 2,343,727 passengers daily in 2005, the nearby stations Ōsaka, Kitashinchi, Nishi-Umeda and Higashi-Umeda are within walking distance and connected by a large complex of underground malls. The underground Umeda terminal of Hanshin Electric Railway is located south of Ōsaka Station, the Hanshin station first opened on December 21,1906 as a ground level station and moved to the present underground location on March 21,1939. There are five bay platforms and four tracks on the second basement, there are east ticket gates on the second basement and center ticket gates and west ticket gates on the first basement. The Umeda terminal of Hankyu Railway is located northeast of Ōsaka Station, the station first opened on March 10,1910, as a ground-level station. The original location of the station was southeast of Ōsaka Station, the station was elevated on July 5,1926. When Ōsaka Station was elevated in 1934, Hankyus elevated tracks were forced to be removed, the switching of tracks were carried out on June 1,1934. This station facility was used until November 28,1971, when the move of station to the present location was completed and this move was because of a sharp increase of transit, which forced Hankyu to operate 8-car trains. The existence of JNR tracks on the end of the 1934 station prevented the expansion of the station so that the station could not handle long trains. After the opening of the current huge elevated station, spaces around and beneath the station, one of the symbols of the commercial complex surrounding the station is the BIG MAN video screen above the Kinokuniya bookshop, common and necessary places to meet in this bustling railway station. The Hankyu Department Store, built next to the station in 1929, was a pioneer of the business model of department stores run by urban railway companies in Japan. The store is still in business at the location even after the move of the station. There are ten bay platforms serving nine tracks on the third floor, there are south ticket gates on the third floor and center ticket gates and on Chayamachi ticket gates on the second floor. Umeda is the point of three lines of the municipal subway, the Midōsuji Line, the Tanimachi Line and the Yotsubashi Line. Among them, only the Midōsuji Line station is named Umeda, the Tanimachi Line station is Higashi-Umeda and the Yotsubashi Line station is Nishi-Umeda. These three stations are connected each other by underground walkways. Regular tickets of the subway, Surutto Kansai cards and IC cards are valid until the passenger gets out the ticket barrier of the station, Umeda Station on the Midōsuji Line started its operation on May 20,1933, as a temporary station. The station was moved to the present location on October 6,1935, originally the station with an island platform and two tracks was built amid one tunnel, but on November 5,1989, the station was expanded to a tunnel that existed next to the station
2.
Modernism
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Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief, the poet Ezra Pounds 1934 injunction to Make it new. Was the touchstone of the approach towards what it saw as the now obsolete culture of the past. In this spirit, its innovations, like the novel, atonal and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and abstract art. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, others focus on modernism as an aesthetic introspection. While J. M. W. Art critic Clement Greenberg describes the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as proto-Modernists, There the proto-Modernists were, of all people, the Pre-Raphaelites actually foreshadowed Manet, with whom Modernist painting most definitely begins. They acted on a dissatisfaction with painting as practiced in their time, rationalism has also had opponents in the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and later Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom had significant influence on existentialism. A major 19th-century engineering achievement was The Crystal Palace, the huge cast-iron, Glass and iron were used in a similar monumental style in the construction of major railway terminals in London, such as Paddington Station and Kings Cross Station. These technological advances led to the building of structures like the Brooklyn Bridge. The latter broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be and these engineering marvels radically altered the 19th-century urban environment and the daily lives of people. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but that Society was antithetical to Progress, the philosopher Schopenhauer called into question the previous optimism, and his ideas had an important influence on later thinkers, including Nietzsche. Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the idea of human uniqueness, in particular, the notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as lower animals proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx argued that there were fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system, historians, and writers in different disciplines, have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Everdell also thinks modernism in painting began in 1885–86 with Seurats Divisionism, the poet Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, and Flauberts novel Madame Bovary were both published in 1857. In the arts and letters, two important approaches developed separately in France, the first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors. Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, the school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners, and became increasingly influential. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention
3.
Kobe
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Kobe is the sixth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture. It is located on the side of the main island of Honshū, on the north shore of Osaka Bay. With a population around 1.5 million, the city is part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka, the earliest written records regarding the region come from the Nihon Shoki, which describes the founding of the Ikuta Shrine by Empress Jingū in AD201. For most of its history, the area was never a political entity, even during the Tokugawa period. Kobe did not exist in its current form until its founding in 1889 and its name comes from kanbe, an archaic title for supporters of the citys Ikuta Shrine. Kobe became one of Japans 17 designated cities in 1956, Kobe was one of the cities to open for trade with the West following the 1853 end of the policy of seclusion and has since been known as a cosmopolitan port city. While the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake diminished much of Kobes prominence as a port city, the city is the point of origin and namesake of Kobe beef, as well as the site of one of Japans most famous hot spring resorts, Arima Onsen. Media related to History of Kobe at Wikimedia Commons Tools found in western Kobe demonstrate the area was populated at least from the Jōmon period. The natural geography of the area, particularly of Wada Cape in Hyōgo-ku, led to the development of a port, some of the earliest written documents mentioning the region include the Nihon Shoki, which describes the founding of the Ikuta Shrine by Empress Jingū in AD201. During the Nara and Heian periods, the port was known by the name Ōwada Anchorage and was one of the ports from which imperial embassies to China were dispatched. The city was briefly the capital of Japan in 1180, when Taira no Kiyomori moved his grandson Emperor Antoku to Fukuhara in present-day Hyōgo-ku, the Emperor returned to Kyoto after about five months. Shortly thereafter in 1184, the Taira fortress in Hyōgo-ku and the nearby Ikuta Shrine became the sites of the Genpei War battle of Ichi-no-Tani between the Taira and Minamoto clans, the Minamoto prevailed, pushing the Taira further. As the port grew during the Kamakura period, it became an important hub for trade with China, in the 13th century, the city came to be known by the name Hyōgo Port. During this time, Hyōgo Port, along with northern Osaka and it was not until the abolition of the han system in 1871 and the establishment of the current prefecture system that the area became politically distinct. Hyōgo Port was opened to trade by the government of the Bakufu at the same time as Osaka on January 1,1868, just before the advent of the Boshin War. The region has since been identified with the West and many residences from the period remain in Kobes Kitano area. Kobe, as it is today, was founded on April 1,1889. The history of the city is tied to that of the Ikuta Shrine, and the name Kobe derives from kamube
4.
Nada-ku, Kobe
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Nada is one of nine wards of Kobe in Japan. It has an area of 31.4 km², and a population of 129,095, a leading national university in Japan, Kobe University, is located in this ward, as is the citys Oji Zoo. The Tadao Ando-designed Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art is a walk south of the Nada JR station. Rokko High School is in Nada-ku, Nada is a major sake producing region, and along with Fushimi produces 45% of all the sake in Japan. A plenitude of water good for making sake and a location near Osaka made it one of the most principal areas of making sake and it was one of the sake production areas called Nada-Gogō. The fine taste of the Nada sake comes from Miyamizu mineral-rich water, Miyamizu is hard water high in calcium and potassium but low in iron, making it ideal for making rich, full-flavored sake. Yamada Nishiki rice is grown in the Banshu eastern Kansai plains and it has larger, softer grains than regular table rice and is starchy, which makes it particularly suitable for sake making. Grains of Yamadanishiki rice have hard starch cores and this means that when they are soaked in Miyamizu water, they dissolve slowly but do not lose their shape. It is said that this characteristic is the reason why Yamadanishiki produces such uniquely flavored sake, the most essential factors for making pure sake are good grain polishing ability and low temperatures. Furthermore, the combination of the winds, known as Rokko oroshi. The Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest Yakuza group in Japan, and one of the largest criminal organizations in the world, has its headquarters in Nada-ku, deutsche Schule Kobe used to be located in Nada-ku. Media related to Nada-ku, Kobe at Wikimedia Commons Official website of Nada-ku, Kobe
5.
Nishinomiya
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Nishinomiya is a city located in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, between the cities of Amagasaki and Ashiya. On April 1,2005, the city of Nishinomiya celebrated its 80th anniversary and it is best known as the home of Kōshien Stadium, where the Hanshin Tigers baseball team plays home games and where Japans annual high school baseball championship is held. It is also the location of Kwansei Gakuin University, a university founded by American missionaries in the nineteenth century. Nishinomiya is an important commercial and shipping city in the Kansai region with the third largest population in Hyōgo Prefecture, as of October 1,2011, the city has an estimated population of 483,598 and a population density of 4,800 persons per km². The total area is 99.96 km², Nishinomiya City is located in the south-east of Hyōgo Prefecture between the cities of Kobe and Osaka. The city can be divided into two areas, an area in the north and a coastal plain in the south. Situated in the middle is Mount Kabuto, a landmark of the city, April 1,1924, Opening of Kōshien Stadium April 1925, Nishinomiya Town became a municipal organization. April 1933, Nishinomiya merged with Imazu Town, Shiba Village, february 1941, Nishinomiya merged with Koto Village. May 1942, Nishinomiya merged with Kawaragi Village, April 1951, Nishinomiya merged with Naruo Village, Yamaguchi Village and Shiose Village. January 17,1995, Great Hanshin earthquake disaster, furuno, a global electronics company, whose main products include marine electronics and medical equipment, has its headquarters in the city. Since most of the farmland is located within the district, Nishinomiya agriculture is in a difficult situation. Currently, efforts are being made to improve farming in order to make it profitable by growing such marketable products as soft vegetables for the big markets of Osaka, other efforts include effective land use by growing crops in greenhouses using hydroponic techniques and development of techniques for safe products. Nishinomiya is situated between the cities of Kobe and Osaka. Luxury neighborhoods are common in city, especially in areas near Ashiya. Some of the malls in Nishinomiya are the Lalaport Koshien. That is the origin of the city name, hyogo Performing Arts Center Kannō-ji Koshikiiwa Shrine Nishinomiya Shrine Mondo-yakujin Much of Grave of the Fireflies is set in Nishinomiya. Nishinomiya is the setting for the light novel, manga
