Tang's DW

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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I did walk downtown.

Park nearby doesn't look bad.

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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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May 18

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I realized another reason this part of Hakodate reminds me of San Francisco: hills, and streets that go up the hills like a middle finger raised to contour lines.

So, I'd decided to go to Aomori today, and assumed it'd be by shinkansen with walk-up ticket, that being reasonable. But last night I discovered there's a ferry. Slower, but cheaper. Hmm! I wouldn't want to pass on good train views, but I'm not sure if there are any. The track isn't coastal; looking at it on Google Terrain, you'd think it has to pass through lots of mountain tunnels (boo) or cross lots of valleys (whoo). My one short-notice source recalled neither, which is odd, though admitted she was busy online.

Well, been a while since I was on a boat, I decided this morning I'd do that. (I put the P in INTP.) Taking a taxi to the terminal ate up much of the savings. (There was a cheaper streetcar + bus option, but I was leery of big luggage on a bus, and it was just... eh.) But before that I had to pack, not having packed at all last night! Took like 33 minutes, minus some backpack stuff at the end, with some cleaning mixed in as well; I feel if I'd focused on just packing, wouldn't have taken that long. I am getting more optimized for short stays.

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