The van on your street
Aug. 8th, 2008 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusJapan got a little closer this week, thanks to Google's addition of the country (along with Australia) to its list of terrains visible via Streetview, Google Maps' layer of human's-eye-view, 360 degree street level photos of (in theory) every street in each city covered. Cities added include Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Sendai, Sapporo, even Hakodate, where I did a residency three years ago.
I spent quite a while on Tuesday going for virtual walks in familiar, favourite neighbourhoods. Above, for instance, is a Streetview view of the Meguro flat where I spent much of 2001 and 2002 (it's up on the lefthand side). And here's my favourite Tokyo people-watching -- okay, girlwatching -- spot: Cafe Sign, at the exit of Daikanyama Station.
It's a little pricey, but they do good iced coffee and have a patio positioned in the car-free, people-dense area right outside the station. If you're sneaky, you can buy your second coffee cheaper than the first from the stall across the road. Street style photographers and fashion students from nearby colleges lurk here, photographing the beautiful people. My last trips to Cafe Sign were to meet Lullatone and Roger McDonald.
Here's nearby "funky shack", Bonjour Records:
You can zoom fairly far through the open door of Bonjour, but if you want to see what CDs they're featuring on their racks you have to go to their website, which features a rack of sleeve snaps not unlike the real thing. Oh look, here's a new Kitsuné compilation with a weird tomato puree motif on the sleeve! It's not quite being there, but it's not quite not being there either, when you can actually examine and even buy the stuff online. (Not that I'll be buying anything; we post-materialists mostly window-shop.)
You quickly learn how to "walk" through Streetview via the keyboard arrow buttons (up is forward, down back, left and right allow you to swivel your head and look around you, plus and minus zoom in and out, and the diagonal arrow buttons let you look -- but not move -- up or down).
There are some limitations, and they're particularly evident in the Japanization of Streetview. The pictures are taken from the roof of a car; since many of Japan's most interesting places are pedestrian-only (the arcades of Osaka, for instance), you won't see them here. Even Hisae's family house, located on a narrow street in Tennoji, isn't visible to Streetview -- this view (several streets away) is the closest you can get:
People-watching is frustrated by Google's privacy policy: faces are strategically blurred. And, in a city in which most journeys are made by public transport, this is a car's point of view, which makes it frustratingly distant. This is as close as the freeway-bound Google camera could get to Alin Huma's Ginza pad, for instance -- we're trapped on the wrong side of the elevated Shuto Expressway, and the building (along with the Nakagin Capsule Tower beside it) is all but invisible.
How close to Tokyo can you get when you can't climb onto trains? Well, I guess there are always David Crawford's Stop Motion Studies for that. Imagine a Google Streetview which included the trains, and which updated views of the people riding them every few seconds!
Some quirks of the system were being discussed on Japanese bulletin boards this week: the Google car intrudes into some shots and has been digitally removed, which has left some people limbless in the pictures. In one sequence the Google car is seen being stopped by the police, apparently for speeding. In others, sun flares chop big white gaps out of buildings.
I found that the digital flanerie got more interesting the more immersive and intuitive the interface became. I zoomed the screen so that only the picture box was visible, then projected it big on my wall. My wireless keyboard was a good enough navigation tool, but I couldn't resist downloading Iospirit's $20 Remote Buddy AJAX remote, an ingenious piece of software which turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a programmable remote. Basically, the Touch controls the desktop computer via a webpage and a local server. You can also reconfigure Apple's little white Remote Control.
I programmed various gadgets to control these Japanese walks with the idea of throwing a Streetview party for our Japanese friends here in Berlin. We'd eat Japanese food and take turns in giving guided tours of our favourite haunts. "I think you'll find that's an idea that leaves Japanese people a lot less excited than it leaves you," said Hisae.
I spent quite a while on Tuesday going for virtual walks in familiar, favourite neighbourhoods. Above, for instance, is a Streetview view of the Meguro flat where I spent much of 2001 and 2002 (it's up on the lefthand side). And here's my favourite Tokyo people-watching -- okay, girlwatching -- spot: Cafe Sign, at the exit of Daikanyama Station.
It's a little pricey, but they do good iced coffee and have a patio positioned in the car-free, people-dense area right outside the station. If you're sneaky, you can buy your second coffee cheaper than the first from the stall across the road. Street style photographers and fashion students from nearby colleges lurk here, photographing the beautiful people. My last trips to Cafe Sign were to meet Lullatone and Roger McDonald.
Here's nearby "funky shack", Bonjour Records:
You can zoom fairly far through the open door of Bonjour, but if you want to see what CDs they're featuring on their racks you have to go to their website, which features a rack of sleeve snaps not unlike the real thing. Oh look, here's a new Kitsuné compilation with a weird tomato puree motif on the sleeve! It's not quite being there, but it's not quite not being there either, when you can actually examine and even buy the stuff online. (Not that I'll be buying anything; we post-materialists mostly window-shop.)
You quickly learn how to "walk" through Streetview via the keyboard arrow buttons (up is forward, down back, left and right allow you to swivel your head and look around you, plus and minus zoom in and out, and the diagonal arrow buttons let you look -- but not move -- up or down).
There are some limitations, and they're particularly evident in the Japanization of Streetview. The pictures are taken from the roof of a car; since many of Japan's most interesting places are pedestrian-only (the arcades of Osaka, for instance), you won't see them here. Even Hisae's family house, located on a narrow street in Tennoji, isn't visible to Streetview -- this view (several streets away) is the closest you can get:
People-watching is frustrated by Google's privacy policy: faces are strategically blurred. And, in a city in which most journeys are made by public transport, this is a car's point of view, which makes it frustratingly distant. This is as close as the freeway-bound Google camera could get to Alin Huma's Ginza pad, for instance -- we're trapped on the wrong side of the elevated Shuto Expressway, and the building (along with the Nakagin Capsule Tower beside it) is all but invisible.
How close to Tokyo can you get when you can't climb onto trains? Well, I guess there are always David Crawford's Stop Motion Studies for that. Imagine a Google Streetview which included the trains, and which updated views of the people riding them every few seconds!
Some quirks of the system were being discussed on Japanese bulletin boards this week: the Google car intrudes into some shots and has been digitally removed, which has left some people limbless in the pictures. In one sequence the Google car is seen being stopped by the police, apparently for speeding. In others, sun flares chop big white gaps out of buildings.
I found that the digital flanerie got more interesting the more immersive and intuitive the interface became. I zoomed the screen so that only the picture box was visible, then projected it big on my wall. My wireless keyboard was a good enough navigation tool, but I couldn't resist downloading Iospirit's $20 Remote Buddy AJAX remote, an ingenious piece of software which turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a programmable remote. Basically, the Touch controls the desktop computer via a webpage and a local server. You can also reconfigure Apple's little white Remote Control.
I programmed various gadgets to control these Japanese walks with the idea of throwing a Streetview party for our Japanese friends here in Berlin. We'd eat Japanese food and take turns in giving guided tours of our favourite haunts. "I think you'll find that's an idea that leaves Japanese people a lot less excited than it leaves you," said Hisae.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 08:13 am (UTC)Looks like my place once had two additional air conditioners... Those were the days.
Shame you can't (maybe you can) have these little yellow streetview icons appear to indicate fellow searchers. That way you could at least play Tokyo-wide hide-and-seek with your friends. Sardines even, if there's a Japanese equivalent.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 08:50 am (UTC)Have you just moved in? Surely these pictures must have been taken very recently?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 09:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 09:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 12:16 pm (UTC)- Robert
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 12:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 05:30 pm (UTC)I'm sure you could go on for days with recommendations but I'd appreciate any advice.
Also, I've been trying to find a post you made about modifying your iPod Touch. A couple friends have found themselves with one due to Apples new promotion deal with computers and I would love to share it with them
Thank You,
Stephanie
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 03:38 am (UTC)Personally, pardon my French, I've always found Kyoto a bit too rarified and up itself to want to live there, but you've a number of other urban centres nearby (Osaka, Kobe, Nara, Nagoya if you must) with distinct flavours of their own to escape to. Tokyo has these too, but it's still all Tokyo as far as you can walk in a day.
Other than that, I recently visited Fukuoka in Kyushu and it seemed very pleasant and great for food, but I've no idea what the arts scene is like there. A recent issue of Monocle suggested Fukuoka was the place to go as well. Could be a good thing, maybe not...
And there's always Okinawa if you really want to slow down.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 04:59 am (UTC)my streetview today
Date: 2008-08-08 05:41 pm (UTC)I also took an (rather analogue) pseudo trip to Tokyo today – framing is everything: へのへの is a small diner recently opened at Kantstr 65. They serve good Gyu-Don and fresh Onigiri ... very kamomeshokudōesk!
GoogleSelf
Date: 2008-08-08 08:42 am (UTC)Joemus
Date: 2008-08-08 11:09 am (UTC)Re: Joemus
Date: 2008-08-08 11:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 12:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 01:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 01:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 04:44 pm (UTC)This means that you may be able to spot me, in full Blur-O-Vision, on Google sometime soon...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 12:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 01:14 pm (UTC)Your wife understands you so boring old man!!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 01:15 pm (UTC)Your wife understands you so boring old man!!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 01:53 pm (UTC)http://gaijinheart.blog100.fc2.com/blog-entry-162.html
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 04:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 06:15 pm (UTC)opposition to Google in Japan
Date: 2008-08-08 06:47 pm (UTC)http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/08/08/japan-letter-to-google-about-street-view/
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 06:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 06:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 06:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 06:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 06:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-08 09:07 pm (UTC)Knock knock.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 01:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 01:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 02:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 02:10 am (UTC)Navajo.
party
Date: 2008-08-08 10:34 pm (UTC)Re: party
Date: 2008-08-09 09:48 am (UTC)Re: party
Date: 2008-08-09 01:44 pm (UTC)Just curious, what would be the dominant language at such a gathering? Or would there be one?
Re: party
Date: 2008-08-10 09:56 pm (UTC)Berlin Japanese often speak German a lot better than they do English, but many of them are (at least) trilingual.
Re: party
Date: 2008-08-12 10:56 am (UTC)I lived in the GDR for a while, and second-language German was sometimes all we foreign students had to communicate with one another. It was companionable because, wherever we were from, we ended up as a little community of pidgin German speakers.
I enjoy reading the blog.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 08:58 am (UTC)> "I think you'll find that's an idea that leaves Japanese people
> a lot less excited than it leaves you"
that's funny.. I showed my wife when she woke up in the middle of the night, and though the town where she grew up is still *just* out of range at this pt, she seemed pretty excited to walk through the city nextdoor and try to peek across the river at it...
i say have your party anyway and tell us what your friends think of it.
I think (maybe) you'll find it's an idea that still leaves (some) Japanese people a lot more excited than she anticipates!
Jonathan
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 09:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-10 12:05 am (UTC)i suppose that without a compelling narrative, it's probably less than fascinating for other people to watch...
still, i would jump at the chance to attend a Japanese StreetView party myself!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 03:21 pm (UTC)// btw. i managed to get closer to nakagin and dia heights by walking the other way from hamarikyu gardens but wasn't too impressed -- it's obviously quite messy and boring but there'S another level that stinks like empire to the whole thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-13 10:09 pm (UTC)