Rich and Strange Aeons

Slept well. Overnight the room managed to get down to its target temperature of 18 C, but that soon changed as the morning warmed up. Spent the morning chatting online with a friend, then got out and wandered west. Still a nice and green area, somewhat unusual for Japanese urbanism -- narrow streets have their advantages, but don't allow much life beyond potted plants. I found a bikeshare station and rode around for a bit. Not much in the way of bike infrastructure around, and the relatively busy streets were two-lane with just a bit of paint as "sidewalk", but the narrower residential streets had good connectivity and I improvised my way around for a while. But I had a goal of exploring the actual Omiya area, and that was like 30-40 minutes away by bike on a hot day, so I eventually turned in. (Closest 4 bike stations were full, I had to park like 5 minutes out.)

So many community gardens. Or farms? I dunno.

I passed an actual rice paddy on the bike ride.

Not a ton to say about Omiya, I mostly explored east of the station, semi-typical Japanese commercial area. The north-south street east of the station was strikingly free of vehicles; looking at the map, that kind of makes sense, it's sort of a loop off a through street further east. And there's no curbside parking in Japan, so you can't drive in to park, especially if the garages are faced somewhere else... lots of pedestrian alleys too, running east-west.

I had a staneshi? sutaneshi? bowl, some sort of ginger pork over rice. Was good, I didn't finish all the rice. That egg in the photo is raw, to be cracked over the food. I also got some boiled dumplings, which were good. Miso came with the bowl, but it was the blandest miso I've ever had.

A shotengai had this sign, which Google translated as "bikes prohibited", but it looks like it's inviting people to kick over bikes.

Accidentally found the sexy club district too, a bit to the south.

Found a Kura under the station, I thought basement CO2 was good, but despite being open to the basement corridors, was higher inside. Also plates started at 150 yen, not 120 yen like the place two nights before. I had a few plates to try out the place, then left.

West of the station is another one of those large second-story deck areas, like I talked about in Fujisawa and have seen elsewhere. Lots of tall mall-type buildings around there; I walked around a slight bit, then stopped in a park to rest. Some apparent young office workers were there too, at like 7 PM, playing around (like the guys jumping over a tiny 'creek' while the women took photos.)

Some gaming (pachinko?) place had this Certain Scientific Railgun poster outside, where you can have your face replace Kuroko's in a photo. Kind of weird. I've been reading the Railgun manga (and have seen all the Railgun anime seasons before -- not all the Index etc stuff), so that was an amusing coincidence.

Back home, the host had finally brought the fan, after I'd pointed out the weak A/C and my physical discomfort. She didn't acknowledge that failing to keep a cool temperature was weak A/C, just saying there was a big difference in day/night temperatures.

Album

Speaking of noise, plus my recent post about car harms, I watched this City Beautiful video on highway noise. 4% of US population lives within 150 meters of a major highway. 30-45% of big city people live within 500 meters. Los Angeles now requires new apartments near a highway to have air filtration, but that doesn't help using your backyard or balcony.

First some random notes:

I saw a lifted pickup in Aomori. And on the tiny street to my place, yesterday I had to squeeze past one of those monster SUVs -- driven by a woman, if you care. The street is one of those "two-way, if you're really polite" lanes; I'd kind of like to see two of those childkillers pass each other.

A friend from Japan has claimed that e-bikes are taking over. I don't know what new sales are like, but judging by bikes parking at train stations, classic bikes are still dominant -- at Shin-Aomori today I counted 50 classic and zero e-bikes, and some other locations are similar. Perhaps owners are reluctant to leave their e-bikes at a station?

It occurs to me that I've actually spent not much time on Japanese subways. Like in Osaka 2019, I think most of my trips were on elevated trains, whether private or city. Fujisawa was all about JR or Enoshima, elevated or surface trains. Komagome, I was right by the Yamamote line. Namba... I barely took trains, I think. Tengachaya, largely elevated again. If I stay in Saitama for the week, it's going to continue to be a JR life.

Sidewalks tend to have tactile paving, like so, for the visually impaired; I realized it also helps guide the visually non-impaired who might be semi-lost: "this yellow tack road probably goes somewhere important, let's follow it."

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Aomori morning:

• Bed was more comfortable for sleeping than I feared. OTOH it's not good for using a laptop cross-legged; I'm best off just sitting on the floor with a table. The host ruled out providing a floor chair or something.

• Civil twilight starts at 3:40 AM, in the northeast; the Venetian blinds on my north-facing windows do jack. I managed to get some more sleep between 5 and 8, I think, then got up, figuring I should keep good habits as I'll need to check out at 10 Monday. Then lots of noise happened at 9, so good call.

• Back to the supermarket, 6 minute walk for me, but kind of unpleasant. Partly not many plants lining the way, like the potted plants I'd see in Osaka. Partly the cars: even on these residential streets, they seem to go relatively fast, like Taiwanese drivers. Sapporo may have been a very car city, but it had lots of sidewalk, and still-tame drivers.

• Though on the way home, I took a different route, and ended up avoiding much traffic at all. Woo, annoying residential streets.

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Hakodate has been making me think of San Francisco. I think a combination of the weather, slopes, low and somewhat color buildings, and views of the ocean. In particular it reminds me of parts of the Richmond and Sunset districts, which I recall had also been quiet and sleepy without making me fear for their economic health.

Then I realized something: I'm on a peninsula between two coasts. The narrow part is less than a kilometer, and even the southern bulb is 2.3 km or 1.4 miles. Of course there's not much east-west (NW to SE) traffic: where would it go, or come from?

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Catching up on daily entries seems increasingly quixotic. But a quick summary

Sapporo events

• Went to Maruyama park a few times. Enjoyed a lot of cherry blossoms, and climbed to the summit, which wasn't the greatest experience.

• Took ropeway and cable car up to Moint Moiya. That was cool

• Botanic garden

• Train to Otaru. Views from the train might have been the best part, for a good stretch it runs right between the ocean and hills.

Hakodate

• Train to Hakodate was less pleasant in both experience and views. JR seems to like running the Green cars hot. But the seats in ordinary cabin would have been very narrow.

• Ropeway to Mount Hakodate

• Visited Goryokaku star fort

• Coast east of me, park, and little zoo. Album

• Coast west of me, shopping area, and bikeshare ride. Album

Hakodate (or my part of it) continues the Sapporo feeling of "where are all the people?" With more justification: Hakodate's population is down by like a third from peak. Though I suspect there's also a thing of businesses being more concentrated than in Tokyo or Osaka, with residential places being quieter. Or the fact that all the streets are wider leads me to expect more.

Ironically, I write that as I wait in Hakodate Park, in between Airbnbs, right next to a small amusement park which is decently busy even at 11 AM on a Monday morning in mid-May. Some of these kids look older than six...

Skipping forward yet again in my travels... yesterday I flew from Osaka to Sapporo. Goal: to catch sakura (cherry blossom) season, since I missed most of Honshu's due to being in Taiwan for visa-waiting (though I did catch some blossoms in the past week of Osaka.) Impressions... eh. ( Read more... )

This morning I got up and out much earlier than usual -- particularly out, showering and getting dressed without stopping by my laptop. So by 8 AM I was wandering around, getting morning sun, and observing all the other people out, going to school or strolling or whatnot. The shopping street just north of me was still depressingly shuttered, but activity was high. Walking. Biking. Wheelchairs in the middle of the street.

On seeing the wheelchairs I realized: "no cars", and while these streets are usually low-traffic, this seemed to be no-traffic, and an expectation thereof. So I paid more attention to the signs, and found: ( Read more... )

I said before that the neighborhood parks here seemed nicer than the usual ones in Japan. That was with two data points, and now I have 7.

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There was a Kura Sushi near me in Yokohama, so I tried going. And lo, not only did it deliver orders do you, but there were plates circulating to be taken! Almost nothing on the plates... because it was 16:30, with like 3 people in the store, so I guess they weren't going to waste food putting it out. But there were some tuna salad and shrimp mayo rolls still on the belt. (Even if I liked them, I would not have taken those particular items after unknown circulation time.) So I ordered everything anyway. But in theory.

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In my current procrastination regarding actually leaving Japan, I found an attractive place nearby: the upper level of a house, 100 square meters! Japanese and Western style rooms, choices of futon and beds! Figured I had to try it. Was only available for a week. A bit pricey, but pretty cheap for the space -- not that I need all that space, but after an accumulated month in a 20 m2 place, I looked forward to stretching out.

You pay in another way, though: where my first places had been a 15 minute walk from the main station, then a 5-8 minute walk, this was a 7 minute walk to a minor station, two stops away from Fujisawa, on a line with 14 minute headways. (The Enoden line is mostly single tracked, so probably not much choice there.)

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