Random photos of stations I have visited

[mojo]

 

Sodegaura.

 

 

Not sure if this is supposed to be for viewing or what.

 

 

Another thing that Google Maps seemingly doesn't take into account is elevation changes.

[mojo]

 

Nagaura station.

[mojo]

 

Hamano.

 

 

One of the most handsome MSX computer's I've ever seen. This Sony was quite nice too...

 

[mojo]

 

The Hard Off here had some really great stuff.

[mojo]

 

A very early 1970s microcomputer.

[mojo]

 

Hachioji Hard Off. There is a room on the 2nd floor, actually part of Off House, where they have this layout and a lot of other random stuff.

[mojo]

[mojo]

 

 

[mojo]

 

A sign at Musashino station...

 

 

[railsquid]

6 minutes ago, mojo said:

A sign at Musashino station...

 

 

 

Delayed depature time indicator (the delayed depature time time being shown in minutes and seconds of the current hour).

[cteno4]

7 hours ago, mojo said:

While most cabling in Japanese stuff is extremely neat and tidy, utility poles seem to be an exception.

Actually that’s one thing I’ve noticed in random places in japan will be some poles with horrendous snarls of cabling. Last trip to japan I actually started taking pictures of them as I was sort of shocked by them.

 

jeff

[Aleks]

8 hours ago, mojo said:

Where is this?

[marknewton]

11 hours ago, mojo said:

I wonder what the deal with that building between the tracks is. Looks like it was put there after the station was built. There must be something down there for the tracks to have diverged that much.

Is it a roof over a pedestrian subway and/or booking office?

 

More great photos by the way - thanks again! 👍

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

 

[bikkuri bahn]

Quote

Actually that’s one thing I’ve noticed in random places in japan will be some poles with horrendous snarls of cabling.

That's a legacy of the war- Many of Japan's cities were firebombed to the foundations of the buildings, and immediately post-war, there just no money to bury power cables and communication lines (Japan was a relatively poor country then, with less than half the GDP of Germany, and people were starving).  In the rush to rebuild, aesthetics took a back seat to expediency, and what was perhaps considered temporary became more or less common practice.

[mojo]

On 1/9/2023 at 8:37 PM, Aleks said:

Where is this?

 

Enoshima. West of Yokohama. There is an island just off the coast with a bridge linking it to the mainland. Around new year they have lights. There is some kind of hotel/hot spring thing there to.

[mojo]

I was just reviewing my Suica data. I made an effort to regularly scan the card because it can only store the last 20 transactions. Anyway, during the trip I spent 58,117 yen on trains and busses. The majority on trains. That was over 30 days.

 

Given that a Japan Rail Pass for 21 days is 66,200 yen, it wouldn't have been worth it. I did use the Shinkansen once and maybe next time I'll use it more extensively, as like the Lunar Rover it allows visits to much further away places in a single day trip, or with one stay overnight. Even then, the Shinkansen isn't that expensive, especially on the shorter routes, so it probably wouldn't have been worth it. Also you can't use the pass on busses...

 

About busses. Because they have to share the roads with other traffic they are obviously not going to be as punctual as trains. They can in fact be quite bad sometimes. The other issue is that they are tiny. The seats are small and placed very close together, so on many of them my knees were against the seat in front if I didn't snag the priority seat.

 

Oh, and Google Maps. There is an option to "reduce walking", handy if you have mobility issues. Just be aware that it will happily make you wait an hour for a bus sometimes, when you could just walk to the destination in 10-15 minutes. You may prefer to walk rather than stand around in the cold. It also tends to underestimate how long it takes to walk somewhere, which is especially important when trying to make connections. I walk at a fair pace I think, not slow, but still had issues.

 

 

Daiso scissors for 110 yen. They are indeed quite powerful.

 

The meatloaf was from Denny's!

[mojo]

 

 

[mojo]

 

 

For some reason home pachinko games are somewhat popular, to the extent that people are willing to buy special controllers just to play them.

 

I can't understand it at all. In real life at least you might win something*, but in a video game? Some games tried to spice things up with soft porn, but most of them seem to just be vanilla pachinko or have a little bit of an RPG attached.

 

* gambling is illegal in Japan but pachinko parlours have a work-around, ask if you don't know how it works.

[mojo]

 

Electronics kits are still somewhat popular in Japan.

 

I remember those SD card adapter things too. You get a lot of weird hardware like that in Japan. Often it doesn't work all that well and doesn't take off.

[mojo]

 

Sakado.

[mojo]

 

Early 8k TV from 2018. 8k broadcasting has been going for a while in Japan. The state broadcaster, NHK, decided to skip 4k entirely.

 

 

Been looking for a Japanese TRON laserdisc for a while, but I want the one with the Japanese cover that says トロン.

[mojo]

[mojo]

[mojo]

 

Higashimatsuyama.

[mojo]