Random photos of stations I have visited

[mojo]

 

I'm sure this car dealership is fully licenced to use this Beatles branding...

 

 

[mojo]

 

What are these? I thought they might be koto at first, but they have those keys...

 

 

The seats on the Light Rail trams... Faux leather, quite comfortable.

 

 

The 5x zoom lens on this one does an incredible job, when it has good light.

[mojo]

 

I like this place, and it's a great example of why I love Japan. Rivers wind through residential areas. It really breaks them up and provides a nice bit of nature. In the background the mountains are visible. The shop has a whimsical name.

 

 

I got a bit lost (wrong bus) and passed this stadium, and got this shot of Nishi-Kawada Station.

[mojo]

 

The first Nintendo video game console. It was hard to resist... Boxed, excellent condition...

 

 

Nishi-Kawada Station again.

 

[mojo]

 

Notice the little steps down to the track level, and the custom notice that was clearly created due to people throwing cigarette butts down there. I wonder how old it is, given that the station must have been smoke free for many years now. It doesn't look too old and weathered.

 

[mojo]

 

 

If the main unit had been white as well I'd have got that.

 

[mojo]

[mojo]

 

These are all walking back to the station in Kuki. My battery was too low to take a video, although it would probably have been very dark anyway. I posted shots with and without Night Sight. It wasn't quite as dark as the ones without Night Sight, but it wasn't far off.

 

I wanted to illustrate how dark a lot of Japan is. There isn't much street lighting, so most of the light in these areas is from people's homes. And yet it's very safe. No muggers lurking in the pitch black, no dog mess to step in. I love walking around these areas at night. There were a few other people out too, on bikes and on foot. Nobody seemed at all concerned, and why would they be?

[JR East]

8 hours ago, mojo said:

wanted to illustrate how dark a lot of Japan is. There isn't much street lighting, so most of the light in these areas is from people's homes. And yet it's very safe.

 Generally speaking, Japan is one of the safest country in the world. I remember, a night, walkin' with my photograpar backpack, absolutely not scared. The only place where I'm not feeling safe in Japan are location with lots of tourists as I'm not confident in foreign tourists' honesty. 

[mojo]

 

No power, probably quite easily fixable.

 

 

Sugito.

 

[mojo]

 

Satte.

 

 

Can't work out what this is. Thought it might be an insulation tester.

 

 

I was quite tempted by this demo disk. I kinda like crappy late 80s/early 90s CGI.

 

 

[mojo]

 

A little food court at Omiya station, made to look like an old shopping street.

[mojo]

 

Simpson's fans will know this franchise. Saw a lot of Laserdiscs today, but didn't buy any. Last year they had some Cardcaptor Sakura ones that were absolutely beautiful, but they were gone.

 

 

First time I've seen an Atari ST. This shop could have done some serious damage to my wallet. I kinda really want the Sord computer. The company was basically one guy who designed all the computers, and although they were eclipsed (like almost every 8 bit platform) by MSX, he kept going with them and they had a following. The M5 Pro was actually a cost-reduced M5, so not very Pro at all. The M5 itself was aimed more at games, so had a fairly rubbish keyboard and weak specs. No BASIC in ROM either, that was a separate cartridge, and you got to choose between integer only, floating point support, or graphics support.

[mojo]

 

I mentioned some video. I'm behind uploading it because my upload speed is quite slow at the hotel. I actually did the wifi here as a favour to the owner, but basically with so many users and the walls being made of something that attenuates the signals quite a lot, it's just not that fast. My laptop is quite old as well, and although the wifi card is slightly newer, it's still quite limited.

 

Anyway....

 

 

This is quite a good one IMHO. I hear the religious chanting around sometimes, does anyone know what it is? The voice is basically chanting some name, and occasionally "shin" (new), and "ikaga desu ka" (would you like some..?)

 

So you have a semi rural area, a crossing with a goods train, the shinkansen overhead and a few trains passing by, and the station. Oh, and a bit of a residential area at the start.

Edited January 6 by mojo

[Tony Galiani]

I have been following these postings closely though I am a little ambivalent about them .... the good news is that they are giving me lots of ideas .... the bad news is that they are giving me lots of ideas!

 

From previous pictures I have noted a couple of buildings that I look interesting but would be easy to scratchbuild  and I already have an idea of how I could set it in scene.  I stopped watching the last video at the three minute mark because:

- I saw a building that justifies the exposed edges on some Sankei kits (at about 1:03);

- found a solution to improve the windows on some Tomytec buildings I have;

- saw some great design elements that will improve a couple of buildings I have already done but want to improve

and had an epiphany about JR container trains!

I couldn't take notes fast enough!

 

BTW WRT to the container trains - and I suppose this should have struck me before as I have watched quite a few videos - I note lots of empty Kokis and I was wondering why they are left in a train that is lightly loaded with containers.  It finally dawned on me as I was watching this video - it is probably easier for JR Freight to keep them in fixed rakes rather than spending a lot of time shunting them about to take off the empty cars.  Don't know why it took me so long to figure that one out!

 

Cheers,

Tony

[miyakoji]

On 1/6/2024 at 8:27 AM, mojo said:

Can't work out what this is. Thought it might be an insulation tester.

Possibly a home made model train power pack.  Some of the labels are direction control 1, direction control 2, forwards, backwards, acceleration rate, automatic/manual.

[cteno4]

There were a ton of homebrew instructions for throttles with acceleration and braking and pwm pulse power for slow stuff back in the 70s-90s. This had the look for components from back then too. 
 

jeff

[mojo]

Ah, that makes sense! Thanks. You find those kinds of home made devices in Hard Off sometimes. Audio gear is the other common one. If I ever get around to it I'd like to experiment with making a train controller.

 

Tony, one thing I love about Japanese houses is how they are mostly all different, unique designs. Well, I'm sure the same pattern gets re-used, but you don't usually see rows of identical ones. So much effort seems to go into them too. The more you look the more you find little design details, the kinds of things that in the UK they don't even think of.

 

 

Signage at Shin-Okachimachi.

 

 

Yamanashi Station.

[mojo]

 

Stuff like this might not sell well, I have no idea, but I bet it gets people into the store. As ever, Yamanashi Hard Offs are excellent.

 

 

I bought an NEC tape recorder last week, but I wish I had waited and got this one now. The NEC one was almost this much, and it's broken (likely needs a new belt). It was hard to resist getting this one anyone.

 

 

I grabbed this calculator with a nice LED display. I'm a bit of a sucker for LED displays.

 

 

They had an excellent selection of IDE hard drives. I couldn't resist this Quantum Fireball. I had a Fireball back in the day, and just wanted another.

[mojo]

[mojo]

 

I'm dying...

 

[mojo]

[mojo]

 

Now regretting not grabbing that PC-FX. I was worried about carrying it to the next two Hard Offs, but in the end I didn't go to them. I was planning to stay overnight, but forgot to bring my medication and felt like I needed it, so ended up going home anyway. I did grab that Space Crusher LCD game though. A friend had one when I was at school, and eventually I managed to get one, but over the years it was lost. It's a lot for a little LCD game, but I loved it so...

 

 

I made a mistake coming back too. Google took me to a station and then told me to get on the Express train. What I didn't realize is that it was a special express with special tickets. I was kind of wondering why the station didn't seem to have an IC card machine, but when I arrived the crossing barriers were closing and the train pulling in. I rushed for it, thinking that the card machine must be on the platform or something... Well, it wasn't. The guard noticed my plight and tried to help, and in the end said it was fine to just get on. I only went one stop and then apologised profusely to him again, and went to the little office by the gates at the station to confess my crime. Charged 184 yen to my Suica card and waved me though!

 

 

Okay, next time I'm coming to Yamanashi sooner. I was planning to in week 1, but was feeling pretty terrible so didn't. Learned my lesson, Yamanashi is the Hard Off paradise to visit first!

 

 

Tomy released this computer in I think 1981. It was actually quite advanced, having a 16 bit CPU. For some reason they pitched it as an educational machine though, and mostly for games, so it didn't do well. Wishing I had now, but it's easy to say that sat in my hotel room and not facing carrying it all. If I trusted myself to drive, renting a car would be the way to do it.

[mojo]

 

Took it easy today. Went to Yodobashi Camera in Kichijoji to get something for my wife, and noticed these. Automated car litter boxes, and next to those cat driers. Japanese people like to wash their cats, and these things apparently dry them off with warm air.

 

[mojo]