Soon my kids will be riding the Yamanote-Sen from Takadanobaba to Tamachi on an almost daily basis. It won’t look much like the above. I took the above picture on the Seibu-Sen on our way to Tokorozawa, going in the opposite direction as the commuters, late in the morning. Some lines, for instance the Seibu Shinjuku Line arriving at Takadanobaba from Tokorozawa, are jammed to the max. Hopefully, getting on at Takadanobaba will be pretty decent since many people should be getting off there for Waseda University.

I don’t think we will regularly be encountering this:

Posted on June 20th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: japan pictures, Tokyo, trains. Comments: 2

アーケード大通り or The Big Street Arcade at 西武園ゆうえんち.

Posted on June 18th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: amusement parks, tokorozawa, Tokyo. Comments Off on Game arcade at Seibuen Yuenchi

Yesterday I was surfing the internet to find out more about my future neighborhood near Waseda University. While I had previously used Google maps, I found Yahoo Japan’s maps to be more useful for finding out what cool things are within walking distance. My son, for instance, was thrilled to see dozens of Ramen shops less than a 10 minute walk away from our future apartment.

I noticed a Shinto shrine just a stone’s throw from our apartment that I wanted to investigate. So I googled 天祖神社 to find some pictures of it. While the shrine itself doesn’t look very impressive, I found a fantastic site, that had pictures of the shrine on it, to learn about my future home. The site no longer exists.

On the front page of Waseda Walker it states, “日本でも有数の学生街として賑わう早稲田・高田馬場周辺の歴史と文化の足跡をたどりながら、この街の魅力を再発見していきます.” which, for those of you who can’t read Japanese, means something like, “Even for Japan, this place is known for its number of students; we’ll follow the footsteps of history and culture around Takadanobaba and Waseda and set out to rediscover the charm of this part of Tokyo.” Given that my apartment lies directly between Takadanobaba and Waseda, I was very pleased in the discovery of this site. I poked around for a bit and then sent the webmaster a brief email in Japanese thanking him for his site.

He responded today with a very nice reply, all in Japanese. I look forward to learning more from Hiroki San, the Waseda Walker, and in a couple of months walking the paths that he has researched and explained, seemingly for me, on his website.

Posted on June 15th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: japan links, Tokyo. Comments Off on Waseda Walker

As previously mentioned, we will be living near Waseda University in Shinjuku-Ku in Tokyo. However our date has changed to probably an August 13 departure and our apartment has moved to the other side of the campus. It’s marked on the above map with an “A”.

We’ll probably be using the Takadanobaba Station more now as it is under a half mile away (instead of over half a mile away from the prior place were we thought we would be living). We will also be close to Nishi-Waseda Station on the new Fukutoshin Line which will be convienent for hops down to Shibuya.

Posted on June 12th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: Tokyo. Comments Off on Slight change of plans

Today’s post is more for family to see where we will be in Japan than anything else.

On the above map, the point marked A shows our soon-to-be home, right next to the Waseda University campus. It looks like we will be a little over a half mile from the Takadanobaba JR station on the Yamanote Line. I always loved the sound of Takadanobaba. Soon I’ll be hearing it almost daily. We’ll be taking the Tokyo Metro more often than JR since we have two stations within a thousand feet of our future residence.

戸山図書館 on the map (to the southwest of our residence) is the closest non-university library. Hopefully it will be a good one. A decent looking park borders it on the west. Shinjuku Gyoen is a little to the south of this map. I’m sure we’ll spend lots of time there as well.

Map #2 shows where my kids will be going to school in Minato-Ku (marked with the A, our residence being marked with a B this time). The distance is only about 7 miles as the crow flies, but there are no direct train lines linking us. They will have to transfer once on the Tokyo Metro to get to school. It will take them about a half hour each way.

Since they will have passes to let them ride the metro train between those two stations as much as they want, at no additional cost, we’ll probably explore the center area of Tokyo that their passes cover more than some other areas.

In the lower, left portion of this map you will see Setagaya Ward. I lived on the Shibuya side of Setagaya-Ku for a few months back in 1989.

This last map shows where I will be teaching a couple nights a week at the Atsugi Naval Air Facility (marked with the A, our residence again being marked with a B). I’ve also circled some other areas I’ve lived in Japan including Kofu, Tokorozawa, and Kawasaki.

Mt. Fuji (富士山) is just to the west of the 138 on the bottom of the map.

Posted on May 21st, 2009 under Japan. Tags: Tokyo. Comments: 1