When we last saw their intrepid heroes, they were Out and About Near Shinjuku. They then continued their journey towards Ikebukuro, along the way S captured the Essence of Subway:
#capturingtheessenceofcapturingtheessenceofsubway
The subway stations continued their impressively intricate maps of the subway building and surrounding area[1]:
They had these in all the subway stations.
First stop was a book store, where they found this incredibly useful artifact:
My English Atlas of Tokyo. A lifesaver in many ways.
Using this artifact, they successfully navigated around their first destination, ‘Ikebukuro’:
Ikebukuro, our first destination, it will forever have a warm place in my heart.
If you look closely at the map above, you can see Tokyu Hands (Tokyo HaNSu), and all of the other destinations mentioned in this post. See if you can track our heroes’ travels!
After obtaining navigational aids, our intrepid heroes continued to their excuse for exploring this neighbourhood, one of the female-oriented anime stores on Otome Road, likely Lashinbang.
Not finding exactly what they wanted, they wandered until they found a little park, where they spent a pleasant hour or two wandering and conversing with cats:
A large number of people (and cats!) seemed to be living permanently in the SE end of this park.
If you read the sign closely, you can see that it is called: “東池袋中央公園”, or “Higashiikebukurochūōkōen”, or “Higashi Ikebukuro Central Park“.
Next up was one of the famous ‘100 Yen’ stores:
In the 100Yen store, there were many examples of cuteness, such as this one.I’ll confess that I never discovered if this was true.
Followed up by their first (of many!) arcade visit!
An elaborate racing game in the first (of many) arcade(s) we visited.
Here, you can see S proudly showing off her bullseye:
And with that, it was time to wander again! Our heroes encountered this odd character guarding the entrance to a different arcade. Heeding his warning, they moved on:
We both found this character disturbing.
And then it was time for Tokyu Hands! Possibly the most famous (at least to our heroes) of the ‘DePaTo’s (Department Stores), they encountered 6 floors of amazing sights:
Tokyu Hands! Our new favourite Department Store!I can’t help but think of Monty Python’s “The Black Knight” when I see this.I don’t know what game this is, but it looks like a classic.
(Upon reflection, this seems to be ‘Shogi‘, and is hundreds of years old[2].)
This was our first of many Lego experiences on this trip.They had such a variety of phone cases at Tokyu Hands, I ended up buying too many of them.The word ‘necomini’ makes me think of cat ears, but I don’t think that’s what these are.
These were amazingly colourful little educational animal skeletons preserved in what looks like acrylic:
Stay tuned for next time, when our intrepid heroes follow some oddly dressed people into a secret hideout in a park, and discover a fabulous secret!
[1]Where else do you see top view and side view maps in public?
[2]In its current incarnation, Shogi is ~400-500 years old, but its ancestors go back at least a thousand years before that.
When we last saw our intrepid heroes, they had just finished looking at various maps in Yoyogi, near Shinjuku. Today, we follow them as they explore small parts of that neighbourhood.
This picture is somewhat unconvincing about the uncoolness of smoking.
We saw a number of these little signs embedded in the paving stones. This one seems to say ‘electricity‘:
We saw this little sign on the ground. Near as we can tell, it says ‘electricity’.
This one seems to say ‘weakelectricity‘, perhaps suggesting that you should not dig here?[2]:
Another strange sign embedded in the ground. “Weak Electricity” and an arrow.I liked the contrasting shapes of these buildings in the distance.
The warning sign on the arm seems to say:
Large black characters: “Entermouth“, or “Entrance”
(Note that the smaller red characters were difficult to read, this is my best guess):
Smaller red characters:
“Pa/Ba- beam/girderRe SeNSa- ??Middle!!”
“Hand Wo(of)?Re?To Fu(Bu/Pu/Wa)Ga?Ri ???Come out”
Perhaps something about a bar sensor, and cars may come out? (Or perhaps the standard warning, that the bar may move seemingly of its own accord, and bonk you unexpectedly?)
Note the warning sign on the arm.
When we were there, there seemed to be some sort of election going on. Here is a selection of various campaign posters:
Interestingly, his name is in Hiragana, not the more formal Kanji, I’m assuming so it’s easier to read. At the time of the election, he would have been 52, I’m not sure if that would make him young or old for running for office (as to why he would include his birth month on the poster). Also note the prominent but understated wedding ring.
Suggesting she’s the senior leader, or a negotiator/mediator? (I can’t find anything on her in Google, to suggest why she would be a target of such specific vandalism.)
The other two signs seem relatively normal. Tamayo Marakawa seems reasonably famous.
There seemed to be an election going on. This is a selection of campaign posters.Another campaign poster.
“What do you want?” A very bold statement, especially with the English being given equal treatment with the Japanese language. Direct translation: “MiNNaGa LaughingFaceDeIRaReRu (of could to be) NiShiTaI (to do)”
The person seems to by Fumiaki Matsumoto. Note that the person making the poster helpfully spelled out his first name ‘FuMiAKi’, probably to help people vote.
An advertisement for a place to live. Can’t tell if it’s a rental or purchase.
Stay tuned for next time, when our intrepid heroes visit the mythical Department Store ‘Tokyu Hands’!
[1]In some ways, these repeated similar words remind me of the words around the ‘Utwig Planetary Engineering Tool’, or Ab’s commentary about the ancient weapon[3]. Also similar to many sci-fi novels’ ‘translations’ of alien languages, putting multiple words to represent one alien word, to show that their concepts are grouped differently than they are in English.
When we last saw our intrepid travelers, they had just finished decoding part of a map inside Shinjuku station. They decided it was time to go out and explore the neighbourhood[1].
As they ventured onto the back streets, away from the bustle of the station, one of the first things they noticed was maps that looked like this:
The green label on the top looks like it reads “ShiBuYa (ward in Tokyo) YoYoGi (neighbourhood in Shibuya ward) T-38-3 RD7″.
The large green label on the left reads: “MaChiWoMi ShiKu!!” or “Town/Neighbourhood (of) Beauty District”.
This would make sense, given the prominent advertisement for ‘Hair & Make & Photo Studio”. There seem to be a number of restaurants, such as the ‘YaKiToRi ToMaRiBa’ (or Yakitoi Haunt)
There are a number of things I can’t decipher, such as: “FuaMiRi- Ma-To”, and “(TeNTeN)”, which might be a cool bar with a difficult-to-search name, or perhaps an eyebrow salon.
“TeRuRuMoBaIRu”, possibly a mobile phone store, but also turned up this in a google search.
There’s also “SaNKuSa YoYoGi …” “Sankusa Yoyogi bundle opening store” But ‘Sankusa’ is in Katakana, meaning it’s a loan word from somewhere, Yoyogi is the neighbourhood, and the last three words seem to be describing it as some sort of store. If we were there, it would probably be easy to find out. 🙂
The last one is in the lower right corner: “DaNSu SuTaJhiO M&S Company”, which sounds like a Dance Studio! 🙂
The previous map and the next map were beside one another on the street, suggesting that they referred to the same or similar neighbourhoods. At the time, we had figured that these maps were some sort of neighbourhood directory, but I had thought that the one above was commercial, and the one below was residential.
A zoomed-in neighbourhood map.
At the top, in blue on white, it seems to say “INTa-NeTo”, beside a ‘DoKoNeTo’ ad, suggesting it’s an internet company ad. Beside it is a pointer to a QR code, which I will ignore, because QR codes are silly.
Looking at some random establishments, we see:
– “INSaITo”
– “MaGuNa” (The smaller characters are difficult to read, perhaps SuChiIToANa-?)
– “Yoyogi ZeMiNa-Ru”, “Yoyogi Seminars”? beside:
– “Yoyogi A-To GiyaRaRi-” Which seems to be ‘Yoyogi Art Gallery”
– Beside what looks like a large building titled “BaRo-Ru Yoyogi MaNShiyoN” or “(something) Mansion Yoyogi”, which has such establishments as:
– “AHAHA LAND”
– “TeNMa”
– “HeA-SuTaNO” (Perhaps ‘Suntan’ or spa?)
– …
And many others I can’t make out. How many can you find/translate?
This next map seemed somewhat the worse for wear:
This neighbourhood map seemed a little worse for wear.
I can’t make out too many words in this one, perhaps a ‘KuRi-Su’, there’s a JR station on the right side of the map, ‘SaSaNiTaWa-‘, and many others I can decipher even less about.
What can you figure out? I feel like this has helped me with a lot of Katakana practice (and Yoyogi-recognition practice), but I still have a long way to go. It’s also interesting to see how many different neighbourhoods that we had heard of were so accessible to each other, often just by walking at random.
Stay tuned for next time, when our intrepid travelers, now that they’re oriented themselves, start actually experiencing the city!
[1]Some of their explorations from that first day, related to the design of the city and various objects, were captured earlier in ‘Thoughts on Design in Japan‘.
As part of our preparation for going back to Japan (and now that I’ve finally organized all of my pictures), I’ll be revisiting our first trip there in 2012. Part of the goal is to help me re-learn Japanese, part is the fun memory lane trip.
We rejoin our intrepid travelers in Tokyo, by Shinjuku station. As they prepare to exit the station, they consult the map:
YOU ARE HERE: A closeup of the area around Shinjuku Station, our favourite Tokyo train station.
Note the two kanji which represent ‘Shinjuku‘[2], which would be useful for us to recognize later, which are also present on the next two captions going up:
Moving on to ‘Shinjuku Southern Terrace’ (literal translation ‘Shinjuku SeZeN TeRaSu'[4], which you get to through the ‘Southern Terrace Entrance’ (‘SeZeN TeRaSu Opening‘). Note that the last character is not the Katakana ‘Ro’, it is instead the Kanji ‘KuChi‘, for opening[5].
Moving clockwise, we see the ‘East Japan Railway Company Head Office’, or ‘JR East Sun originmaincompany BiRu’.
(Those of you who play Mahjong will likely recognize ‘East’ here. Also note that the second character in ‘Japan’ (‘origin’) takes a different meaning (‘main’) in ‘Company Head Office’.)
(I likewise learned ‘2’, or ‘Ni’ in this context from playing Mahjong. Note also that the ‘yoyo’ in ‘Yoyogi’ is an alternate of ‘daidai’, which presumably someone who grew up in Japan would know, but is perhaps non-trivial to someone trying to translate it.)
The ‘Odakyu Southern Tower’ ‘SmallRice FieldHurry SeZeN TaWa-‘ seems to be part of the home of the Odakyu Electric Railway. (I’m not sure of the exact etymology of ‘Odakyu’. My best guess is above.)
Continuing clockwise, we see our first name entirely in Katakana, the ‘Hotel Century Southern Tower’, or ‘HoTeRu SeNChiyuRi- SeZen TaWa’.
This takes us to one of the places that we stayed in Tokyo, the ‘Hotel Sunroute Plaze Shinjuku’ ‘HoTeRu SeNRu-To PuRaZe Shinjuku’, which shall forever be near and dear to our hearts. 🙂
This is right next to the ‘Shinjuku Maynds Tower’ ‘Shinjuku MaINZu TaWa-‘, which seems to be a 34-story office building.
‘Shibuya‘ ‘reluctant valley ?’ is surprisingly difficult to translate, as for some reason the handwriting recognition didn’t recognize the third character ‘district‘
Moving down to the bottom, in red, you will see one of the most important set of words to recognize in Japan: ‘Black UDoN MountainFood‘. (The operative words here are ‘Udon’ noodles and the Kanji for ‘Food’. 🙂 )
The last one that I want to translate here is in the lower left-hand corner, in red: ‘Shinjuku SeNE- BiRu 1F’ ‘FueSuTei BaRu GoRuFu’ ‘Shinjuku WING Store‘. This seems to say (to me) that there’s something on the first floor of this building, perhaps a bar and grill and store?
Katakana is often difficult to de-transliterate, as you often have no idea which language the words are loaned from. Perhaps someone in the comments can answer!
Next time, our intrepid heroes pause to ponder the immensity of Shinjuku station, where the large number of train tracks is just one part of a huge complex:
The Area around Shinjuku Station, our favourite Tokyo train station.
…and then continue on their journey. Stay tuned!
[1]Many thanks to the KanjuVG Project and Ben Bullock: http://kanji.sljfaq.org/ They were able to detect my poor drawings of kanji symbols on the first attempt, and their first suggestion was correct three out of three times (for the third symbol, I had to tell the program to ignore my stroke order)! If you’re going to be working a lot with Kanji, it’s worth learning the rules for stroke order.
[2]Interestingly, ‘Shinjuku’ means ‘New Juku’, or ‘New Lodge‘. Knowing this meaning of ‘Shin’ was to be helpful later.
[4]In these transliterations, I’m using a Katakana chart, and capitalizing the first letter of each syllable (including the syllable ‘N’, sometimes pronounced ‘M’ by our teacher).
[5]Interestingly, this is one of the few words I remembered from my 8 months of Mandarin back in the day, although only the meaning, not how to pronounce it.
It’s always an experience coming home from an immersive event. Good movies can do it, especially when you’ve experienced catharsis, I’ve also experienced it a good meditation or epiphany.
But when the event is weeks long, with a totally different culture and social mores, the decompression experience can approach culture shock in its intensity.
When I first came home from Burning Man in 2013, I was biking down the Danforth, looking at all of the establishments along the road. Because I was still decompressing, I saw them as emplacements whose main goal was to persuade passers-by to give them resources.
we had decided to spend a day or two in Reno on the way back from the Burn in 2015, a trip which I will document later. Today it’s more about the decompression experiences.
We arrive at the hotel in Reno! Also visible: Mike, possible Marc.Our pristine hotel room.Is it a strange alien beast, or bungee cords?Is it a strange alien beast, or bungee cords?This is what playa dust looks like in Real Life(tm).#metasymbolsThese were the best bike locks. You just had to spell a word, such as ‘HIRP’, and it would unlock.POLT. Also, we left these locks (and our bike baskets) behind for the next renter.In the Reno airport, we saw an installation that seemed somewhat familiar.Aha!Your trusty correspondent, outfitted in full Space Cactus regalia.
And, that’s all she wrote.
There are still many more photos to process (we had so many people helping us plan and build!), but this is the chronological end of the project (modulo a couple of moves of the installation parts when they arrived home). It feels good to feel like I’ve finished something, even if it was in much more depth than I had ever expected.
Today, we join them as they teardown the main camp, and set off for their next adventure!
S, leaving our home away from home for the last time…Our home away from home, all packed up and ready to go!We leave playa as we found it, a place beautiful in its starkness. (Note also Trevyn (or perhaps Splat) joy in the background.)Totenkitten main camp, before teardown. I’m often sure of the exact level of intentional irony.As Francisco discovers, tarps are not to be trifled with. *OM NOM NOM NOM*Camp, halfway through teardown.Evan walks towards the invisible quonset wall.On the road, the dusty, dusty road…My joyous traveling companion!Civilization! the first time we stopped here on the way home, in 2013, we were so struck by the abundance that we bought everything in sight.
When we last saw our intrepid crew, they were in the middle of teardown of the Charnival. Today, we see them finish teardown of the Charnival, and start combing the desert[1] for MOOP[2].
Darq combs the desert.
S, Greg, & Kosta take a break, while Seth rides up and NekoBus looks on.l-r: Trevyn, Felix (?), S, ?#becauseS: “I found this guy hiding in one of the benches!”NekoBus heading home in the evening.The Sunday night Temple Burn is a very emotional and spiritual experience for many.Ships’ masts are much lighter this way.The tradition of geometric-shaped art cars continues. Here we see the Square Pyramid and Projected Icosahedron.After one last *FOOM* from Medusa, it was time for bed!
[2]This is a long and painstaking process. Somehow, I didn’t take any pictures of this. Imagine raking an area of desert the size of a football field under the blazing sun. But Leave No Trace is that important.
M & M work on disassembling Francis the Fantastic.#metaphotographyE looks on as C ‘rolls the fence’.M & C are caught in an instant of slow-time.The furious dissasembly of Riskee Ball continues!l-r: Riskee Ball dissasembly, Charnival Front of House, Fire Tetris, C.The hardy team working on Riskee Ball. l-r: AD, KZ, CH, AL, RL.Splat takes a break in the shade while Mike surveys his packing of Francis.The Riskee Ball dissassembly crew, hard at work. l-r: Mike, Andrea, Steph(?), Kosta, NekoBus, Greg.
Splat surveys what is left of the skin on his fingers.
MF & GL walk by the remaining upright parts of Mirror Blaze.The non-mirror parts of Mirror Blaze.Fire and acrylic mirrors. Sometimes they have an effect on each other.
Greg and splat work on the final mirror!And the lifeguard chair comes down!l-r: Lifeguard Stand, Stepstool, Flamey, Quartz Tube, Charnival Sign, Mirror Posts.Flamey side view. Note the use of rebar, and the large amount of non-flammable fabric and teflon used to protect the quartz tube.Note the aluminum foil protecting the wiring.S, G, & M bring down the last part of the lifeguard stand. Done!B stands triumphant with Flamey.
[1]Still arduous, but took about 1/3 as long as putting it together (not including MOOP sweep).
Mirror Blaze, at the start of phase II. Note the wind bracing sticks at the top.Callum pulls up the fence protecting the fuel depot for Mirror Blaze and FaIRE Hockey.l-r: Case, Kosta, Kevin, S (slight case of clamber), and Splatl-r: Kevin, S (slight case of peeping), Greg, SplatThe disassembled pieces of Mirror Blaze pile up!Greg holds up some of the padding used to protect the quartz tube from the metal straps holding it up.The quartz tube, marks left over by the silicone and not-so-flammable fabric padding.The quartz tube, in situ. Note the sooty colour.Kosta unhoking ‘Flamey’, the flame effect.‘Flamey’ is quite ‘sooty’. But the aluminum foil protecting the wiring held up!
Next time, the rest of the Mirror Blaze tear down!
