We live near a couple of train stations – but by far the one I use the most often is on the Mita (blue) line. I have always taken this line to work. In my previous apartment in Tokyo I lived much further south on the Mita line – closer to the office. Neither stop is the end of the Mita line – and I guess I could never really picture how the line would end. To me it emerges at my station as though it came from another world – one that doesn’t really exist…
That is until Sunday morning. I decided I would explore the end of the Mita line – which was surprisingly close to our place – by way of geocaching. I headed out for three caches around Nishitakashimadaira… and came up empty.
But that’s the thing with geocaching: you never come back feeling a sense of failure. I discovered many new sites during my walk that I didn’t know existed. Now that I know what’s there – surely I’ll go back…
… to the end of the Mita-sen.
end of mitasen geocaching |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Entries (RSS)
Hey. Good work. 0 for 3. Well, to brighten your day, I’ve got some complaining to do about the way your pictures are being displayed (in Chrome).
1. Narrow pictures and long descriptions don’t play nice together.
2. Not as easy to use as simple web page.
3. “Next” button is tiny and sits next to an equally tiny “close” button. Bad UI.
4. “close” button should be on top where every other close button in the history of close buttons is.
5. Buttons move when the picture resizes, which means playing “chase the little tiny buttons with my touch-pad mouse” for each picture. (sure arrow keys work, but who discovered that before getting angry?)
6. More difficult to create a hyperlink to a specific picture. (Yes, I can do it, but can they? You know who I mean).
You’d think all those Buddha pictures would mellow me out.
All very valid points! The long descriptions getting hidden is bugging me too… I am still trying to find the right solution.
However! I like the keyboard left and right arrows. The way I was doing it previously also didn’t pre-load the next image – making it slower to page through them all.
Nice little trip.
- Two non-smoking signs – One for right handers, and the other for lefties – or – one for bourgeois and the other for communists.
- 仏 – this character has some meanings, and doesn’t necessarily means Buddha – the biginner of Buddhism. In this case this character just means “a statue of some kind of Buddhism god”, or in short a pagod. Tokyo Daibutsu is a statue of “Amida Nyorai” and Kamakura Daibutsu is aloso a statue of Amida Nyorai (Amida is one of the alias of Buddha), but Nara Daibutsu is a statue of Rushana butsu (Rushana isn’t Buddha).
So 大仏 just means “a large statue of some kind of Buddhism god”. It may better to refer it by simply “Daibutsu”. And the most famous (at least in Japan) 大仏 isn’t Kamakura one, but Nara Daibutsu. There are so many “大仏” all over Japan – see http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E4%BB%8F
- Smaller whilte statues are “Seven Lucky Gods” (七福神)
- Where is Naoki?
Okumura-san,
Interesting take on the no smoking signs. I thought one was for straight smoke – the other for curly smoke!
And thanks for the Buddhism lesson – very useful to know!
Naoki was at home with his お母さん – sleeping! – while his foolish father was out geocaching.
Cherry blossoms and Buddha, brings back great memories of visiting Erin and Mish. Do they still use those colourful plastic cards to buy the train tickets? Do they still leave the expired ones in little wooden boxes beside the machines? A great collectible, Erin and Mish got me nearly 300 different ones during their year in Japan.
Great shots of your boy, I wonder when he’ll get to meet their boy?
Lots of snow here in Freddy Beach, and more coming to-day!! I’ll bet you don’t miss that a bit.
Keep up the great snapshots of your experiences. I can travel all the way around the world without leaving my basement
George – Thanks! Glad you’re enjoying the little window into our world. After our last e-mail exchange I did some looking around, and Makiko assures me that those train cards are a thing of the past with the new electronic IC cards. Wish I had better news for ya!
I hope indeed that Naoki gets a chance to meet your new addition to the family. At least he’ll have a chance to meet his friends in Fredericton in June!