Day 10 & 11 Of Tokyo Imperial Hotel LEGO Build

Well... I finished it.

My version of the Tokyo Imperial Hotel... built with spare LEGO pieces I had accumulated over the past two years. In the photo above, it sits on a laptop computer with a background picture of the building.

That's 1,188 bricks and 148 pages of instruction, more than a few - whoops, I don't that have that part so let's make an alternative fix - 90% of 'damn, I don't have that color brick', plenty of 'why are you doing wasting your time with LEGO' comments, and plenty more internal 'I don't care what people say, I'm doing this anyway'.

I love the red translucent tiles that rim the edges and make up parts of pillars.

It's done. Eleven days... okay, 11 nights at three hours or so a night.

I'm emotionally drained. yes, because my Toronto Maple Leafs (hockey) coughed up a 4-1 lead with 12 minutes to go in the third period to lose in OT - and are now out of the play-offs. Yes, because I have to spend three days at a trade show starting tomorrow. Yes because living with mental illness that's not your own is tough. Yes because I'd rather be doing anything than writing this blog today...

I'm drained. I need time off. But I can't take any. Where would I go?

Top view.

I would go and visit this hotel in Japan... or what's left of the magnificent Frank Lloyd Wright creation.

But, I sit and celebrate my victories wherever I may find them - and this model is one of them. I'm having a glass of ice wine brandy. It warms the cockles of my heart and makes my head spin from its silky sweetness.

Melodramatic? Maybe. I've only had two sips - and only in the past two paragraphs.

That front entrance with the brown tile roof is awesome.

I built this $160 kit with about $40 of bricks. That's what I would estimate it all to be - but of course, every time I bought bricks, I would buy a few or each that I liked - wondering why I was doing it - greed, I suppose. I desire to have.

I suppose I should thanks the folks who work at the two LEGO shops I frequent: Fairview Mall (near work) and Sherway Gardens (near home) in Toronto… they know me - not as well in Fairview… but they have been extremely helpful in all my endeavors with LEGO… and have helped turn me into someone who enjoyed buying kits for my son, to someone who enjoys building for the joy of building.

Side-view: The sideways mounted brick on the two floors were slow builds.

I get that same sort of rush whenever I write a blog, see a pretty woman or watch my kid succeed at something. I supple I should say, "In no particular order", because really, we all know which is number one. I know, I know… some of you aren't sure if I know what is number one.

So... the real kit has 1,188 pieces, and I pretty much used that and more. Some of the larger pieces I broke down into smaller pieces where ever I did because it seems like I have a lot of small pieces.

A view of the back. Unspectacular, to be honest.

I actually have a lot of large pieces, but I built a foot (30 centimeter) high mountain with a Japanese temple on that weighs about 20 pounds or more. I tried to build it hollow, but I needed to insert a lot inside to make it stable.

The same holds true with this Frank Lloyd Wright LEGO kit.... it was designed with a lot of bricks inside to add stability that you don't see on the outside.

It's an excellent design.

The green roof and upper level windows were some of the last things I built.

And... for those of you who look at my multi-colored kit and say it only has a passing resemblance to the actual LEGO kit, take a look at the photos below of the actual Tokyo Imperial Hotel, and then again at what actually remains of the Tokyo Imperial Hotel... now tell me that mine doesn't compare...

Tokyo Imperial Hotel - 1960s

All that remains after the hotel was demolished in 1968. It was moved to Nagoya, Japan.

Man... I can't get over the number of pieces... I purposely didn't look to see how many pieces would be required. It's a hell of a lot!

So… not counting sets… I might actually have close to 35,000 pieces. With sets… 65,000? Holy crap.

By the way. Each brown tile is about the same size as a Canadian/US ten-cent coin.

Now... what the hell do I do for an encore?

I know that LEGO's coming out with a kit on the UN building in New York... or maybe some smaller kits, like Big Ben?

The only good thing about being me is that when I say I will do something, I do it. So I will create something else. I'd rather do something with a Japanese theme.

So far, this is the only official LEGO architecture kit with a Japanese theme.

Hmmm... maybe tomorrow I'll take some pictures of some of my Japanese LEGO stuff I have built in the past couple of months... kits, but still pretty interesting.

Cheers
Andrew Joseph