A Gaijin in Japan - Discovering and Loving Japan, One Day at a Time
Posted in Photo Hunt on Mar 21st, 2008
This weeks theme in The Photo Hunt is Metal or Kinzoku (きんぞく) in Japanese.
I took this photo of a metal, Sun Tiger water pump, on the way home from my local Sushi bar where i eat dinner and have a few beers several nights each week. You could be mistaken for thinking this photo was taken deep in the country of Japan but it’s actually taken in Yoyogi, a suburb of Tokyo.
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Posted in JR Yamanote Line on Mar 18th, 2008
This week on the 29 stops of the JR Yamanote Line i visited Gotanda, this was the first time i’d been to Gotanda and exactly the reason behind visiting all 29 stops, to go to places i ordinarily wouldn’t have thought to visit.
Gotanda (五反田) is described as a busy but unfashionable neighborhood in the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo, Japan. The name “Gotanda” can be literally translated as “a (rice) paddy of half-hectare’s size”. The district straddles the Meguro river, and is located between the Meguro and Ōsaki stations on the JR Yamanote Line.
“The JR loop severs the neighbourhood into two districts. Higashi (East) Gotanda lies inside the Yamanote loop, while Nishi (West) Gotanda is outside the loop. Nishi-Gotanda is largely residential, with moderately-sized apartment buildings close to the JR station and quiet leafy streets in the outlying reaches.
Higashi-Gotanda is home to Seisen University, NTT East Kanto Hospital, several temples and shrines and as many office towers like a mid-sized North American city.
Higashi-Gotanda also has a substantial number of hotels, including some of the famed capsule hotel style. Some of the buildings making up the sprawling world headquarters of Sony are found along the eastern edge of Higashi-Gotanda.”
The longer i live in Japan the more i want to see of it and the more i find myself looking for a map of Japan so i can see what’s out there. I’ve been to a few of the prefectures and will mark up one of these maps sometime soon so i can keep track of my travels. There’s a heap of prefectures i know nothing about so having a good map of Japan handy will inspire me to do some more research and plan some more trips internally.
Japan consists of the following, 47 prefectures, which can be broken up in too 1 metropolis - Tokyo, 1 circuit - Hokkaido, 2 urban prefectures - Osaka and Kyoto, and 43 other prefectures. This current system of prefectures was established by the Meiji government in 1871 after the abolition of the han system.
The hunting around i did turned up quite a few good maps of Japan that you may find useful too. The above Map Of Japan and a few others can be downloaded full size from the links below.
If you’re looking for a more detailed Map Of Japan then try these ones. Note, there’s only 2 pages so you might need to go back to the start of the gallery.
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After 16 months i’ve finally been able to get to the snow for a days Snowboarding. I’ve been to the snow a heap of times but it’s always been on the back of an Onsen Trip, which is considerably different to a day of excercise hurtling down the mountain.
The destination was Kawaba Ski Resort, about 3 hrs on a bus door to door from Tokyo and a grand cost of 5100 yen, including the days lift pass. Having Snowboarded in Australia and New Zealand it’s a pleasant surprise not to be slugged a veritable fortune for a days boarding.
Kawaba - Situated in northern Gunma prefecture, the village is in a rather mountainous area. 83% of it is covered by forests, and five rivers, the Tashiro River, the Sakura River, the Tazawa River, the Usune River, and the Mizomata River flow through. Kawaba, meaning “the place of the rivers” is thought to be named after its many streams.
I’d checked the website during the week and was told to expect fine conditions on the mountain, low teens, good visibility and 3 metres of snow. I wasn’t dissapointed. Turns out it was a beautiful spring day with the temperature reaching 12 degrees C, the snow was 2.9 metres deep and visibility was 100%.
Posted in Japan on Mar 16th, 2008
In Japan, Valentine’s Day is observed by members of the female gender who present chocolate gifts (either store-bought or handmade), usually to a member of the male gender, as an expression of love. The handmade chocolate is usually preferred by the receiver, because it is a sign that the receiving male is the girl’s “only one”.
On White Day, the converse happens: males who received a “honmei-choco” chocolate of love or “Giri-choco“ chocolate of courtesy on Valentine’s Day are expected to return the favor by giving gifts, usually more expensive. Sometimes the term sanbai gaeshi (literally, “thrice the return”) is used to describe the generally recited rule that the return gift should be two to three times the cost of the Valentine’s gift.
The shops were buzzing Friday night with last minute shoppers, myself included, the last thing you want to do is arrive home. or wherever else you may need to go, empty handed.
By the way, the tardiness of my posting this week was due to a Wordpress problem preventing me writing posts, it seems Apache was blocking my IP after to many queries were sent to the server … all seems to be fixed now so i have a bit of cacthing up to do.
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Danny Choo
