Dumb Otaku » Architecture

Japanese Schools From Above

DumbOtaku — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:41:25 +0000

So I was leisurely flying around Tokyo area and decided to snap some picture that were kind of interesting. One thing that I ended up getting images of are schools. There are A LOT of schools so I snapped a few of them to show. I think they are kind of interesting. Also, when I say there are A LOT I mean there are A LOT. Take a look for yourself.

I know the images are a little wide for my theme, but I didn’t want to spoil the full size so I went with the larger size anyway.

Now if you know me I am from middle of United States and haven’t left my house so I thought I should explain how I was able to fly around Japan. It is truely amazing how many people don’t know about Maps.Bing.com (also known as live maps or Virtual Earth). Virtual Earth released pretty much about the same time as Google Maps, but like a couple of weeks after. What is more interesting is a lot of the features Google Maps now has Virtual Earth started with. At first Microsoft created http://preview.local.live.com. That is basically Street View which Google has, but was created long before Google did theirs. However, Microsoft scrapped it due to privacy issues. At the same time they were experimenting with Birds Eye View which is less invasive and allows Areal shots at an angle for you to figure out streets and buildings etc. Microsoft hired pilots to criss-cross the skys snapping pictures at 45 degree angles all over the world, and they are constantly adding more cities to the database.

That is a brief summary of how I was able to fly around Tokyo from home, and a bit of technology history of which probably no one cares, but I find very interesting. So now for the pictures.

Here is a picture of Toys R Us in Japan. This was amazing tome because i never thought there would be one in Japan. I never know it was an international store. Also even more amazing when I first hit birds eye view this is what popped up.

Here is an image of an industrial place that if i didn’t know I was looking at Japan I would never have known. Just goes to show we aren’t all that different.

Links Around Town 4

DumbOtaku — Mon, 04 May 2009 03:06:02 +0000

Here are some more interesting links around the English/Japanese bloggosphere. Most of the links I try to get are to help better understand the culture in Japan as understanding the culture is a good way to understand the language. I only make these posts when I find 20 links I think are more interesting than others.

This time around I want to make a special thanks to The Nihon Sun and Turning-Iwatean. You all are making some great culture posts, so many in fact I can’t post them all.