The Wayfarer Blog

One year ago today, I was in Beijing, China. I went to attend my friend’s wedding in Harbin, and before that, I stayed a few days in Beijing. I arrived on the evening of the 29th, so the 30th was the beginning of my tour.

I took a bus tour, which included:

• A museum with lifelike models that recreated famous events in Chinese history
• A jade museum
• Some of the 13 Tombs of the Ming Dynasty Emperors (A World Heritage site, by the way!)
• A tour of a Chinese medicine clinic, with presentations and free consultations with the doctors (which I didn’t take advantage of).
• The Great Wall

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I really like this picture of the Co-Edo Bus in Kawagoe. It looks interesting. Last Saturday, when I finally took the time to go one more stop to Kawagoe Station, I wasn’t disappointed. As I mentioned before, Kawagoe has a historical area that I would like to check out. Even the area by the station is pretty cool. (Check out some pictures I took of Kawagoe here!

Golden Week is just beginning. What is Golden Week, you ask? It is a series of holidays in late April/early May that fall together over the course of a week. Unfortunately, they are not consecutive; this year, we have two work days right in the middle of Golden Week, Tuesday and Wednesday. And I have a few private lessons on Saturday and Sunday, so I won’t actually take a day off until Monday. Then I will work Tuesday and Wednesday, and I’ll have a four-day weekend. Of course, I rarely take more than one full day off at a time, so four days will seem like a lot (I hope!)

What will I do? Read on to find out…

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荻窪駅 - Ogikubo Station

I took while I was waiting for a Sobu Local Train to Mitaka. This is looking South, from Platform 4. I almost always take the Chuo Express Trains on Platforms 1 and 2, because they are faster, but since Mitaka is just a couple stops away, I took the local.

I shot this with my Canon Ixy 800IS, in “Vivid” mode.

I haven’t taken many pictures of flowers, but here is one I did take last Saturday in front of Kawagoe Station.

You know the drill. You can click on it if you want to see a bigger version.

My friend Stew has written a brilliant article describing his experiences with public transit in China.

It made me think about the train system in Japan. I rarely ride the bus in Japan, but I ride trains every day. Some people have asked me if the trains in Japan are like the ones in the US (I guess they mean Amtrak?) In a word, NO! For one thing, especially in Tokyo, there are tons of them, and they are generally punctual. They are efficient, but often crowded.

When I made a comment on his site about how the trains in Tokyo are the best, I hope I didn’t sound like I was gloating. There are many things that annoy me here, but I just really like the train system. Whenever I leave Japan, I miss it. On the other hand, maybe it is a good thing I like the trains, since I waste spend so much time on them!

I want to write more about this, but I really need to get some rest. In the meantime, enjoy his article. I took the picture above at Minami Furuya Station (南古谷駅), last Saturday, when I went to get my computer. That bus was waiting right outside the exit.

Here’s the link to his article again, in case you missed it at the beginning of the article.

If you made it through the long post I wrote yesterday, you know I had to make a special trip to my college in Saitama Prefecture to get my computer. (If you haven’t read it yet, you can scroll down to the next article below this one). Here is a picture I took with my Nikon D70s:

This lantern says, “Yakitori,” which can be written as　「焼き鳥」or 「やきとり」. “Yaki” 「焼き」means “cooked/baked” and “tori” 「鳥」means “poultry/chicken” So basically, it is a style of bbq on skewers, like a kabab.

The restaurant wasn’t open yet, but I thought this was a pretty cool lantern in front of the shop. I took this on the way back to the station, after I had gotten my computer back.

As always, you can click on the picture to view it at its home on flickr.

Of all the dumb things to do…on Friday, I left my class at the music college in Saitama Prefecture, and i forgot to grab my computer. I had set it down to charge it for a few minutes. The school is in Minami Furuya (南古谷), which is about 1.5 hours or so by train from my house. How far is that? I’ll put it to you this way: the next stop on the train, after Minami Furuya, is Kawagoe (川越), a popular day trip destination for people anxious to get out of Tokyo! In other words, it is not down the street! (And that is with the really fast train, that skips most of the stops. If you took a local, it would be much longer!) I remember having a nagging feeling that I should go back to the classroom because i was forgetting something. But I ignored it. I didn’t realize I’d left my computer in the classroom until later that night, as the train was pulling into Shinjuku….

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I really like this…Let’s call it today’s photo!

This is, of course, a Japanese billboard for Spiderman 3, which will be hitting theaters soon. I took this at Shinjuku Station, on Platform #14, which is the Sobu Line. I’ve mentioned the Sobu Line before. I ride many trains, but the main one is the Chuo Line (中央線). As I mentioned in the previous post, There is a rapid line, called the Chuo Line, and a local one, called the Sobu (or Chuo-Sobu Line). If you’d like to learn more about the Sobu Line, check out this Wikipedia Article.

Today was a bit of both. I had an early morning company class, and I was cutting it a bit close (I got up early, but I should have left a bit sooner…). Naturally, the Chuo Express Line was about 10 minutes late, but the Sobu Local Line was not. (I work for an English Language Company. Their headquarters is in Ichigaya, so I often go there. The company where I taught this morning is a very large printing company. Their headquarters is also in Ichigaya. I teach some classes at my company in Ichigaya, but they also send me out to various schools, companies, and organizations. When I go to Ichigaya, I usually take the Chuo Line, because it is much faster. Unfortunately, the Chuo Line doesn’t stop at Ichigaya, so I usually take it to Yotsuya, one stop before, and transfer to the Sobu Line.) Since the Sobu Line was not late, they didn’t hand out excuse slips to prove the train had made us late. I suppose I could have asked for one if it had been that critical. At any rate, I was a couple minutes late. My students didn’t mind, but it was not a great way to start my day.

But things got much better after that. I took a few pictures after my company class. I planned on taking a bunch of pictures, but the battery on my Canon died (I haven’t charged it since I got it a couple weeks ago, so that is pretty good!) Click below to find out how my day ended up…and see a few more pictures I took today!

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Yesterday, I wrote that I would have curry for lunch today, but I ended up eating lunch at home. I had to grab dinner near work, so I made a beeline for this curry shop, which I mentioned yesterday. It is called, 「カレーの王様」or “The Curry King.” I go here from time to time. The food is delicious, and the service is great (but then again, that is almost always the case in Japan). I’ve introduced several people to this restaurant, including my sister. Everyone loves it.

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