ED75's Random Japanese Trip Photos

[Martijn Meerts]

3 hours ago, ED75-775 said:

I also took the time to film some video of the track ahead, but those I can't post due to server reasons

 

It's not so much for server reasons, but more a cost thing. While cloud storage is relatively cheap, videos can be extremely big. Especially with the newer devices shooting in 8k and such. We can't really force people to optimise their videos for the web before uploading them, and the forum software currently doesn't automatically do any video processing.

 

If that changes in a future version, or via an add-on we can install, it could be something we could look into again, but we would never be able to offer the kinda features that for example Youtube offers.

 

[cteno4]

Years ago in the early days of digital video a client wanted a 15 min video up for an event. I was concerned our server would not serve it well for the couple of hundred folks that might try to pull it over the two day event and also worried if it got out and went viral at all, so i proposed using a video hosting service for a month at the cost of maybe a couple of hundred dollars. They balked at this [I had done their web and it stuff very inexpensively on just what they needed as they needed to keep costs low all the time and they got use to that] and said no just put it on our site, so i did. Well it went viral from emails from those at the event and of course most folks got very very slow to forever load times. Everyone then up in arms why isnt this working! At that point you cant say “i told you so… [or thusly]” Luckily a friend did a lot of business with the little company i had recommended and they were able to get us set up and running in an hour or two on the weekend and I redirected the link and things worked and all happy. But then the bill came for $2k for the pulls they had and lots of yelling! But luckily the guy in charge had such a good reception of the video from far and wide he didnt object to the charge at that point as he was looking good and the event organizer was paying ot send DVDs of the video to 2000+ consultants. Only negative going around was i had screwed up the video, ya cant win.

 

jeff

[chadbag]

@Tony Galiani Baumkuchen is fine. We buy it when there and in fact I bought an expensive one at one of those specialty shops in the bottom of a bigger department store in Kobe last time we were there as a gift for our hosts at new years.   In fact it was one of the few places I was at that didn’t take a credit card (but did take IC cards).   I was able to quickly load my virtual Suica and pay.
 

being the good Germanophile I am I love Baumkuchen.   I won’t say it’s  better than a mochi donut though.   

Edited Wednesday at 09:33 PM by chadbag

[ED75-775]

Time to head back to Tokyo one last time - this time, using the Shinkansen. In particular, these two shots from 2019 are rather special as they represent the only time I ever got to ride on a E4 series shinkansen, all of which would be removed from service by the time I was able to head back to Japan in 2023.

 

 

 

Admittedly these platypus-billed trains may not have been the most aesthetically pleasing (spoiler alert: massive 500 series fan), but travelling on high-speed, double-deck trains is always fun. Much as I enjoyed a top-deck ride on this train from Ōmiya to Tokyo, I'm still not entirely convinced it's worth breaking the bank to get one in N scale. Maybe I could bend to an E5 as that was the first shinkansen I ever rode, but so far I have resisted that temptation.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Time to quickly stop back in Shinjuku one last time before we head onto our next destination. But wait - what's that noise? A feline yowl rings out across Shinjuku... and it's not the Shinjuku Cat? What could it be...?

 

 

It's the Cat...truck? This little kei truck operates as a mobile crepe stand, but what caught my eye is the fibreglass front and side details which make it resemble Hayao Miyazaki's famous Catbus. Quirky? Yep. Worthy of inspiring something in model form? Oh, absolutely.

 

Well, that's about it for our Train Tour around the Kanto region. We'll be headed to Nagoya shortly, so as always, please stay tuned!

 

Alastair