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kodalaiFinally, after nearly two months in Toyama (and over a month after taking and uploading these pictures) I'm getting around to posting photos!
These pictures are basically only of my apartment and the area around it, and some of downtown Toyama. I intended someday to bring a camera to school (actually, I meant to do that on the culture festival day, but forgot) and to take a camera with me up Kurehayama Hill. I still haven't gotten around to climbing that on my bike, tho, since the weather was first too hot and then too wet. However! I did bring my camera with me on the climb up Mt. Tateyama, which is a much more impressive mountain; unfortunately, the extreme fog (we were basically inside cloud level for most of it) and some weird setting on my camera made those pictures not come out too well. :(
So to begin...
My new bike. Pretty sweet, isn't it? When I bought it I specifically requested something with gears, as I knew I'd be doing some up and down hill climbing. The bike guy brought out this one, which has six speeds. "Six speeds!" my supervisor, who was around to translate, exclaimed. "That's a lot!" I didn't really have the heart to tell him that American bikes routinely come in ten or twelve speed models, and I'd never in my life owned one with less than ten. Anyway, I like the basket.
Ah, my apartment. Trash bins in foreground. I really should be thankful that they just sort into burnable and nonburnable and don't really make a fuss, since I don't think I could handle anything more complicated. But the building extremely prefab, plain, free of any kind of textures, fabrics, or embellishments. The outside lighting is broken, rust and dirt coat pretty much every surface, and there's trash strewn over much of the parking lot. Ah, well. I like it anyway. The inside of the apartment is quite nice (aside from the occasional roaches which I think come in from next door) and the neighbors -- mostly Toyama University students -- are also quite nice.
My apartment building, center. In this good light, from this distance, it isn't really apparent just what an ugly hunk of concrete it is. :p
The surrounding area, however, is quite nice. This picture is taken from the same vantage point, turning to the right -- the building in the left is the tall building from the last picture. The biggest downside of having that lovely wooded hill there is that the sun sets behind it pretty early. Between the hill and the apartment building, not really visible in this picture, is the train track and the canal.
Turning further to the right, and walking towards the woods, the train tracks become visible, as well as the little bridge that crosses the canal and heads into the park.
Standing on the bridge, looking out towards the right (not visible because of the intense light, the road is up in that direction.) Toyama municipal design in particular and maybe Japan in general, I don't know, is characterized by having deep stone or concrete gutters, canals, and waterways every way you turn. They line every street, seem to seperate every block from every other. Not sure whether it's a storm drain system to handle the (extremely heavy) load of precipitation, or an irrigation system for the rice paddied which are all over the place, or both. I was afraid that all this water would breed mosquitos by the cloud, but it doesn't seem to. Or maybe the spiders eat them.
Now across the canal and train tracks, entering the park. This way makes a good shortcut up to the road, if I don't mind having to haul my bike over the tracks and then ride it up an unpaved gravel slope. Better for walking. This place smells heavly of chamomile and burning trash towards the evening. I'd do more walking here, but it's also completely controlled by spiders.
Following the same path, this trail enters a tunnel and seems to lead off into wilderness. Frankly, after having watched Spirited Away, I'm scared to go under here. There's a distinct worry that I might not come out in the same world I went in.
Moving away from the scary other-world tunnel, the rest of the park (heading up towards the road.) Nice statue, no idea what it's for.
Close-up on the statue. No idea what the plaque says.
On the other side of the park, now standing by the road: this is the sign next to the road that leads up to Kurehayama Hill. I think it says 'Kureha Hights' but don't quote me on it.
Going a little way up the hill, though not far: I couldn't get any really good pictures of the view, so I settled on an example of the SPIDERS THAT RULE THE WORLD around here.
Now turning right and walking along the road, back towards my apartment. Standing on the bridge that crosses the canal and railroad, going in the other direction. The park is on the right edge of the picture here and my apartment building is off in the distance (see that tall building?) In the foreground is mostly rice paddies, which gives you a feel of how bogglingly rural this place is despite the city being right there.
Standing in the same place as the previous picture, but facing the opposite direction. That's the city there; about one train stop away, or ten minutes by bike.
Turning right off the main road onto the little road leading back to my apartment, here is a random picture of a house. And some pretty sunflowers.
Approaching my apartment building from the road, with the hill and the afternoon sun behind it. It looks so much prettier from a distance. In the foreground, a rice field.
A close-up of the rice field from the previous picture, because I really wanted to convey what a gorgeous vividly green color these things are. They actually don't look that way any more; the rice grains have come out, which they hadn't when this picture was taken, so now the green is frosted at the top with brown and the rice plants are leaning over with the weight.
The balcony of my apartment, from the inside. Not really a very good picture, but it's hard to get good pictures of rooms that you are inside of. Note the Ed plushie hanging from a light-pull in the extreme foreground.
The next pictures were taken at a different day and time, hence the change of weather and lighting.
A slightly corrupted picture of the Nishi-Toyama train station, my jumping-off place for all things Japan Railway. The train into Toyama costs only 180Y (about a dollar fifty US,) and takes only five minutes. Otherwise I would never go into town at all.
The Toyama train station itself, which contains what amounts to a shopping mall as well as being connected to every major travel service on this side of the island. Busses also go to the airport.
The CIC building, one of the towers in downtown Toyama across from the train station.
Downtown Toyama, towards evening.
Another shot of downtown Toyama.
A picture of Toyama Castle, small because it was actually taken with my camera phone at a completely different time from all the rest of these photos. We saw this castle in the middle of a for-no-apparent-reason festival that we stumbled into, with parades and dancing and stalls of food. It was pretty sweet.
Downtown Toyama, at night.
A few of the Toyama JETs hamming it up at dinner.
And now, the Mt. Tateyama trip pics. None of these photos are very good, and none of them at all really captured the staggering scale of how big the mountain was, how steep it was, and how far up we climbed. But just to give you a sense of the scale, please observe that in all of these pictures the only vegetation you see is grass, flowers, and low bushes: mountain meadow plants. We were far above the timber line before we even started climbing. And on the final approach, there are no plants at all: too steep, too high, and too cold for anything but rocks.
In a couple of places there were still (in august!) snow fields that stretched across the trail. We had to cross them, and it was nearly impossible to do without falling. And this snow was NOT soft.
The 'halfway' point, where we had the option to stop and stay here, or go on. I opted to go on, not realizing that from there on out there was no actual 'trail,' just climbing up steep rock slopes.
At the top of the peak there is a shrine, making this one of Japan's three holiest mountains, with the other two being Mt. Fuji and Mt. Ha-something or other.
Proof that I really climbed, yes, I did!
The end! For now.
These pictures are basically only of my apartment and the area around it, and some of downtown Toyama. I intended someday to bring a camera to school (actually, I meant to do that on the culture festival day, but forgot) and to take a camera with me up Kurehayama Hill. I still haven't gotten around to climbing that on my bike, tho, since the weather was first too hot and then too wet. However! I did bring my camera with me on the climb up Mt. Tateyama, which is a much more impressive mountain; unfortunately, the extreme fog (we were basically inside cloud level for most of it) and some weird setting on my camera made those pictures not come out too well. :(
So to begin...
My new bike. Pretty sweet, isn't it? When I bought it I specifically requested something with gears, as I knew I'd be doing some up and down hill climbing. The bike guy brought out this one, which has six speeds. "Six speeds!" my supervisor, who was around to translate, exclaimed. "That's a lot!" I didn't really have the heart to tell him that American bikes routinely come in ten or twelve speed models, and I'd never in my life owned one with less than ten. Anyway, I like the basket.
Ah, my apartment. Trash bins in foreground. I really should be thankful that they just sort into burnable and nonburnable and don't really make a fuss, since I don't think I could handle anything more complicated. But the building extremely prefab, plain, free of any kind of textures, fabrics, or embellishments. The outside lighting is broken, rust and dirt coat pretty much every surface, and there's trash strewn over much of the parking lot. Ah, well. I like it anyway. The inside of the apartment is quite nice (aside from the occasional roaches which I think come in from next door) and the neighbors -- mostly Toyama University students -- are also quite nice.
My apartment building, center. In this good light, from this distance, it isn't really apparent just what an ugly hunk of concrete it is. :p
The surrounding area, however, is quite nice. This picture is taken from the same vantage point, turning to the right -- the building in the left is the tall building from the last picture. The biggest downside of having that lovely wooded hill there is that the sun sets behind it pretty early. Between the hill and the apartment building, not really visible in this picture, is the train track and the canal.
Turning further to the right, and walking towards the woods, the train tracks become visible, as well as the little bridge that crosses the canal and heads into the park.
Standing on the bridge, looking out towards the right (not visible because of the intense light, the road is up in that direction.) Toyama municipal design in particular and maybe Japan in general, I don't know, is characterized by having deep stone or concrete gutters, canals, and waterways every way you turn. They line every street, seem to seperate every block from every other. Not sure whether it's a storm drain system to handle the (extremely heavy) load of precipitation, or an irrigation system for the rice paddied which are all over the place, or both. I was afraid that all this water would breed mosquitos by the cloud, but it doesn't seem to. Or maybe the spiders eat them.
Now across the canal and train tracks, entering the park. This way makes a good shortcut up to the road, if I don't mind having to haul my bike over the tracks and then ride it up an unpaved gravel slope. Better for walking. This place smells heavly of chamomile and burning trash towards the evening. I'd do more walking here, but it's also completely controlled by spiders.
Following the same path, this trail enters a tunnel and seems to lead off into wilderness. Frankly, after having watched Spirited Away, I'm scared to go under here. There's a distinct worry that I might not come out in the same world I went in.
Moving away from the scary other-world tunnel, the rest of the park (heading up towards the road.) Nice statue, no idea what it's for.
Close-up on the statue. No idea what the plaque says.
On the other side of the park, now standing by the road: this is the sign next to the road that leads up to Kurehayama Hill. I think it says 'Kureha Hights' but don't quote me on it.
Going a little way up the hill, though not far: I couldn't get any really good pictures of the view, so I settled on an example of the SPIDERS THAT RULE THE WORLD around here.
Now turning right and walking along the road, back towards my apartment. Standing on the bridge that crosses the canal and railroad, going in the other direction. The park is on the right edge of the picture here and my apartment building is off in the distance (see that tall building?) In the foreground is mostly rice paddies, which gives you a feel of how bogglingly rural this place is despite the city being right there.
Standing in the same place as the previous picture, but facing the opposite direction. That's the city there; about one train stop away, or ten minutes by bike.
Turning right off the main road onto the little road leading back to my apartment, here is a random picture of a house. And some pretty sunflowers.
Approaching my apartment building from the road, with the hill and the afternoon sun behind it. It looks so much prettier from a distance. In the foreground, a rice field.
A close-up of the rice field from the previous picture, because I really wanted to convey what a gorgeous vividly green color these things are. They actually don't look that way any more; the rice grains have come out, which they hadn't when this picture was taken, so now the green is frosted at the top with brown and the rice plants are leaning over with the weight.
The balcony of my apartment, from the inside. Not really a very good picture, but it's hard to get good pictures of rooms that you are inside of. Note the Ed plushie hanging from a light-pull in the extreme foreground.
The next pictures were taken at a different day and time, hence the change of weather and lighting.
A slightly corrupted picture of the Nishi-Toyama train station, my jumping-off place for all things Japan Railway. The train into Toyama costs only 180Y (about a dollar fifty US,) and takes only five minutes. Otherwise I would never go into town at all.
The Toyama train station itself, which contains what amounts to a shopping mall as well as being connected to every major travel service on this side of the island. Busses also go to the airport.
The CIC building, one of the towers in downtown Toyama across from the train station.
Downtown Toyama, towards evening.
Another shot of downtown Toyama.
A picture of Toyama Castle, small because it was actually taken with my camera phone at a completely different time from all the rest of these photos. We saw this castle in the middle of a for-no-apparent-reason festival that we stumbled into, with parades and dancing and stalls of food. It was pretty sweet.
Downtown Toyama, at night.
A few of the Toyama JETs hamming it up at dinner.
And now, the Mt. Tateyama trip pics. None of these photos are very good, and none of them at all really captured the staggering scale of how big the mountain was, how steep it was, and how far up we climbed. But just to give you a sense of the scale, please observe that in all of these pictures the only vegetation you see is grass, flowers, and low bushes: mountain meadow plants. We were far above the timber line before we even started climbing. And on the final approach, there are no plants at all: too steep, too high, and too cold for anything but rocks.
In a couple of places there were still (in august!) snow fields that stretched across the trail. We had to cross them, and it was nearly impossible to do without falling. And this snow was NOT soft.
The 'halfway' point, where we had the option to stop and stay here, or go on. I opted to go on, not realizing that from there on out there was no actual 'trail,' just climbing up steep rock slopes.
At the top of the peak there is a shrine, making this one of Japan's three holiest mountains, with the other two being Mt. Fuji and Mt. Ha-something or other.
Proof that I really climbed, yes, I did!
The end! For now.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 03:50 am (UTC)... god, those spiders. D: they need spider-eating beasties, but i'm pretty sure with the size of those webs they'd even catch birds. DUN DUN DUN DUUNNN.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 04:22 am (UTC)I mean, I know how it looks, but I love those apartment buildings. You make me miss it so much!
I love the picture of you on the mountain! It reminds me of my Mt. Mikke.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 05:31 am (UTC)*grins* Look like you have been enjoying yourself. Though the spiders would creepy me out. But if they kept away the mosquitoes I think I could comprimise ^____^
no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 12:20 pm (UTC)miss you much, but it looks like so much fun! yay!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 04:46 pm (UTC)