擅宇间

1. Yokohama International Port Terminal, Japan

Reasons of fabulosity:

1. It is an ideal combination of transit infrastructure and great open public places.
2. It celebrates water front recreation.
3. Its fluid and complex form follows its innovative function, which is a series of programmatically specific interlocking cirvulation loops allowing the architects to subvert the traditional linear organization.
4. And don;t forget it also ingeniusly articulates an idea of structural beautification.

It is at this very time of the year that makes the single newbies in the big apple realize how 'new' and 'single' they actually are. When all your colleages are gradually gone for vacation or family; all your married friends are back to their warm and cozy homes to be with their wives and husbands; and all of your three new single friends have their own separate gigs none of which you will fit in; even the museums, the bars and the supermarkets in Chinatown are shut down. All of a sudden it occurred to you like an epiphany, damn, I am very single in the New York City!

People say in New York, solitary is like body armor, people wear it because they need the isolation from all the insanity and crowdedness from the surroundings, like in the forever funky subway stations and Friday night gay bars. I don’t know, I think it is a big myth. Come on, do people really come to a town with the most fierce density in the world to be alone? If there are people thinking that way I would say that’s a most idiotic idea ever. If you want to be left alone go to Alaska, or Texas or something. People come here because they want to be bothered by all the craze it has to offer, yet once they are here, they realize that the world is not at all about what they wish for, so they put on an act of pretending to have nothing to do with it, and they start to use all kinds of excuses to stay alone, mostly their busy schedules.But if so, then do people really come to the most realistic city in the world to evade from reality?

And I suppose I just might be one of those people.

I was woken up on the New Year morning by the regular loud and obnoxious bitching from my ninety-year-old (or seventy? whatever) never married (I assume so because I can’t imagine anyone putting up with his mean spirit) next door east European neighbor, complaining about the lights in his bathroom not working (or the girl living down the hallway playing music too loud the night before? can’t really remember). What a refreshing start of year 2009, Yeah! Happy New Year people I hate!

Unable to fall back to sleep, I got up and started checking my emails, trying to find some comfort from people I like, or at least not hate. Through years I have developed this habit of sending out greetings to everyone I know on New Year’s Eve every singe year, to remind people that I care about them, and more importantly, to remind them that I am still alive and kicking somewhere so hello, don’t you dare forget about me! But this year out of either laziness or my trying to find out do my people actually think of me without the hint, I did not send out anything; so hey apparently I am a little less popular than I predicted. Not a single new mail from my friends or family! Except the regular junks and spams from things like ‘meetup’ or ‘LinkedIn’, shouting ‘please reply to your friendship request blablabla…’ How frustrating! And what’s up with those ‘friendship’ sites anyways, like nowadays we human beings are not capable to reach out to others without the camouflage and access provided by the virtual tools? Oh wait, that’s exactly the life we are living now! Are we doing this because we are socially and emotionally ill-developed generations or just because we can? Have the tools disabled us or enabled us? I started to believe what professor Iwamoto said to me a long time ago, ‘tool is everything’. Indeed, whether we decide to use them or refuse them, it is all about them.

Ok a little distracted, back to the topic. So what do I want for New Year? World peace of course! Nah, just kidding. Last year I wished for going back to single life and moving to New York, and now I am in New York, more single than ever. What more can I wish for? No idea. All I know is it is kinda bleak to end up like my very old and mean neighbor, bitching about nothingness one New year morning, just to remind people of their existence.

Aha, there I go, all I want for New Year is no more excuses.

Oh what the hell, and world peace.