Tag Archives: trains

Nagasaki Ramble, Feb. 2020, part 1 (trains, trams, food & rumours of a…)

Unnecessary Preamble:

The trip was meant as a little adventure and to visit relatives and also get away from the house while a few construction tasks were happening (new bathtub! etc.) but…

roll on to Nagasaki

As it goes, this was the “last trip” – at the time the (now infamous) Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined – shrouded in mystery – in Yokohama, the city was a bit tense and confused, and indeed, a week later another cruise ship was quarantined in Nagasaki.

Since we were well along the pregnancy, we stayed safe and busy despite my – ugh –usual health challenges, and so very much enjoyed Nagasaki: riding trams, olden Dutch settlements, bomb memorials :(, friendly folks, quirky kissaten cafes unchanged for decades, plus hospital visits for a young relative, and an abacus tournament (really) – Some new friends, strange islands, impossible alleys, hills & plants.

Of course didn’t realize it would be years until our next time out of Okayama prefecture // 2 years feels like 2 weeks or 20 years depending on the day.

Contemporaneous notes follow (there is also a fantastic analog scrapbook somewhere):

Feb 13, 2020: Nagasaki ramble officially underway at Okayama station at best lil coffee stand called Life & Coffee / ordered up a Bizen special cup

#protip there is a piece of Bizen ceramic put in the coffee which infuses with magic powers &/or imbues with extra tastiness

Feb 14: Nagasaki miscellanea diary (not to be confused with the Ryoko’s botanical diary)

Post box (obviously) at station

With a combination of low pressure weather systems, overstimulation of fast trains, and a bit too much activity of late, had a real rough flareup with my mostly-beloved but somewhat-battered body. It’s hard to explain all the pain but when it suddenly comes on, it’s quite scary.

Anyway, sweet wife tracked down some help for me this morning with acupuncture needles connected to electricity and some ice got the immediate pain calmed down.

Then, immediately following whilst on a little walk, we happened across a mysterious tiny café, ate some local dishes & met a new friend, the proprietor – or son of the family or something something. Regardless, he loves fishing and was cheerful and affable. Koba-san!

the famous champon noodles of the area

He knocked off the job and loaded us up in his car for a coastal drive to gaze the remnants of a coal factory mining island (noted in various films).

Plus the related museum displaying the challenges of life on an industrial enclave which was for a while a “fully functioning” city and the most densely populated place on earth.

While every day is a romantic interlude with my Darling wife, appropriately today we viewed the battleship island from “wedding“ rocks complete with a Torii gate, and much fun conversation.

Now a rest, then perhaps a walk to explore the Dutch outposts from long-ago days before the “black ships “ obliged Japan to open up.

Overall everything going well except for my crushing head / end of dispatch #valentinesday

I offer a few photos as evidence. Really the usual: postbox, trains, street cars, telephone, plus a few of the aforementioned items.

Trams

Trains

Trams & Trains video

A montage of trams and trains featuring music by Dan Mangan and Ryoko Olson… It turns out there are literally hundreds of similar videos on YouTube but I’m pretty sure this one is the very best of all of them :-)

Pyjamas

Pajamas provided by the hotel, in this case, button-up long night shirt style. Really fantastic. I’m really trying not to steal these and further ruin my reputation in Japan (and for all other foreigners too). But if no one knows it was me…

Canals & Vibes

Canals, old customs houses, small alleys, mix of Western and Japanese style houses… All in the little area around our hotel. Dreamy // and keep in mind, none of this existed after August 1945

Food, for starters

Harbour Stroll

Due to the (at that time) recent announcement of a mysterious illness entering Japan aboard a cruise ship, the general populous immediately hunkered down – so, when we went on a harborfront stroll seeking splendid sashimi, we had the promenade and the restaurant basically to ourselves.

Ryoko’s Botanical Diary

Chinatown Stroll

While Nagasaki’s interest in history deserves several essays and a miniseries, in brief: as you likely know, for hundreds of years, Japan was basically closed off to international trade with a few exceptions, one being controlled trade with China (who often acted as a middle broker for Japanese wars with other countries) as well as first the Portuguese who were expelled by bringing their religion Against the wishes of the Daimyo (insert story about peasant quasi religious uprising here… Oh actually Melvyn Bragg on the intellectually stimulating “In Our Time” podcast covers The Shimabara Rebelion) so then the trading franchise was transferred to the Dutch who were sequestered on an island // which we will get to later…

So in the meantime, here are a few snapshots of Chinatown – which is Japan’s oldest Chinatown and somehow lent to the feeling of Nagasaki as a miniature San Francisco: a harbor, lots of hills, various cobbled, international vibe, great café culture, trams clattering along – but, as far as I could tell, a lack of Beat poetry and self-aggrandizing tech companies.

More to come

Considering this diary only catches the first barely 2 days of the trip and there’s so much more to share, I invite you back for:

  • Visit to Dejima
  • Abacus tournament
  • Grilled meats
  • Old public bath
  • Quirky coffee shops
  • Atomic bomb museum
  • Experiencing four seasons of weather in three days
  • Of course more trains, post boxes, payphones and so on, probably anyway

Way Home (more trains)

And just so I don’t forget: here are two snaps from the way home on the now decommissioned Kamome train – briefly addressed above at the time but now replaced with a super high speed “new trunk line” a.k.a. Shinkansen a.k.a. bullet train.

I love these “at – grade” class trains as they are wider, have beautiful touches like parquet floors, lounge cars and viewing areas // which you can see in the photo along with the usual photo of my boots, yes these cheap and cheerful chukkas which took me into the Himalayas, along with my stolen suitcase of treasures which earned its stickers.

So we go on.

Lost the Plot (Finding Home), Video – Postcard #85

Thinking about “going home in October” or even more, going far away with this video version of the audio-first podcast.

+ Lost the Plot (Finding Home) – Postcard #85 podcast, but video(!) +

Take some spoken word poetry and add some shaky tuktuks and random trains with assorted filters and voila, ya got a podcast you can watch AND listen to if that’s your thing. 

+ Lost the Plot (Finding Home) – Postcard #85 podcast, but video(!) +

Blurb: Thinking about “going home in October” or going far away via freeverse poetry backed by trains from Moncton to Sri Lanka and tuk tuks from Kerala and Thailand, read by a weary fella in barn in Japan. 

Note: Postcards from Gravelly Beach, literature podcast, est 2006, now with 85 dispatches, each handcrafted with affection.

fondly, dvo

Audio-only version of “Lost the Plot (Finding Home) – Postcard #85

Continue reading Lost the Plot (Finding Home), Video – Postcard #85

Lost the Plot (Finding Home) – Postcard #85

LOST THE PLOT (FINDING HOME) – POSTCARD #85

Thinking about “going home in October” or even more, going far away from home via freeverse poetry, read directly from scribbled travel scrapbooks and backed by trains from Moncton to Sri Lanka and tuk tuks from Kerala and Thailand, by a weary fella in an olden barn in provincial Japan. Fondly home. 

Be Lost at Home: Lost the Plot (Finding Home) #85
(17MB, 10:26, 192 kbps, mp3, stereo)

Continue reading Lost the Plot (Finding Home) – Postcard #85

Post’d: Trains & Trams (& carriage interiors), mostly in Nagasaki

Fired up the printer last night, with two kinds of paper and 12 or 15 different designs with trains and trams/street cars in & around Nagasaki – plus another “bonus series” of symmetrical views of vanishing point in train interiors.

So many cute trams & trains in Nagasaki, plus some other treats which seemed to want to find a way into the world

Turned out so well! The trick is getting all the crops and the captions on the back just right as well as no/borders and choosing appropriate paper from extensive assortment. In this case, some are on thick watercolor paper, others done on glossy or thinner paper with a little white border which might get a crinkle cut.

Now comes the part where I diligently & specifically choose who gets which one, which stamp (Note: i generally over pay the postage in order to get the better designs on the 84¥ stamps) & which pen to use. Yes I’m very enjoyably overthink all of it.

You can see the same designs on different paper with different borders

I did let my doctor today choose first from the whole stash and enjoyed telling him the back story -– down to the nuanced detail – of the one he chose / indeed this photo has so much backstory to me – From Pender to Newfoundland to Nepal. I’ll tell you sometime if you ask.

Dr chose this one which holds such meaning for me with memories & boots from Pender to Newfoundland to Pokhara to Nagasaki

Made some extras so If you’re feeling a little blue or done something particularly nice out there in the world or, I don’t know, like a birthday or something, sign up for the postal club and I’ll see if I can’t get one coming your way… Always trying to catch up, I’m sort of trying my best ?

Of course the smart folks sign up for the “postcard as a service“ for a new unique piece of art every month / Surprise every month &/or blanks to send to pals / totally worth it #Endorsement

daveostory.com/shop/

I assume each of them will be passed down through generations. Fck disposable, make art.

Backdrops: Trains and Capsules (for fun times), vol. 1

Train which looks like a Wes Anderson movie but was really in Izumo, Shimane, Japan (no longer in service)

While working in the “postcard as a service” and modified foreign passport industry, i don’t do many Zoom(tm)/etc calls but if i did, i’d use these photos from trains and capsules as backgrounds. And, yes feel very amused. 

a repurposed/refurbished train moved from service around Chicago to the Utah “front runner” line – pleasing 1960s greyhound/diner vibes 

Sharing these in the event you find them amusing and want to use as a backdrop for your next video service conversation. As long as you are amused. 

somewhere in California or Oregon on Amtrak Coastal Starlight dining car
First Cabin “deluxe” capsules within Kansai KIX airport (near Osaka) – lived here just so i cold tell folks “yes i did stay in a capsule hotel”
bonus: from the last time i was in Vancouver, an intersection which was once a gravitational centre for me (especially suite 420 of the 1 Alexander bldg dead ahead), now ambivalence 

Scenes of resilience and fragility around Thrippunithura, Kerala, India

Scenes of resilience and fragility around Thrippunithura, Kerala, India

New batch of postcards for DaveoShop ~~ this time featuring three scenes of the neighbourhood around Dr. Veena’s Ayurmantra, my Ayurveda clinic in Kerala, India, including: 2 sherbet-coloured houses in oil pastels and the local train station, Thrippunithura – empty though there is a video of clip of a train rolling through – in  mixed-media.

Here was a special place for me and my erstwhile healing ramble and well, the world needs a lot of healing right now so floating these out into the world in hopes of sparking inspiration and goodness.

Peace to all of us, our relations, our memories. 

{get in the on the Postcards As A Service subscription plan}

Media: Slow Train Coming (Cascadia Trains) / Vancouver Courier, Oct. 22, 2008

from the article by Robert Alstead, Oct. 22nd, 2008
from the Vancouver Courier article by Robert Alstead, Oct. 22nd, 2008

I was interviewed (and used loquacious quotes like “super lame”) for an article about train travel in the Vancouver Courier.

I am including my quotes and a few other snippets about my pet-rant, ergo: inadequate train travel between here and points south – as well as the photo by Dan Toulguet so it doesn’t disappear…

##

Slow train coming

Robert Alstead takes a journey north by rail from California and wonders if Canada’s vanished passenger trains will once again carry us from coast to coast – Robert Alstead, Vancouver Courier Published: Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Dave Olson, who works in marketing for Gastown web design company Raincity Studios, travels six or seven times a year by train, on business and pleasure. “I don’t care for jet travel because of the incredible hassle and huge eco-footprint,” says Olson. Like many, he would take the train more if he could. “I like the pace and not having to drive, I like the rhythm and the scenery you normally don’t see, the rail yards and seashores and forgotten neighbourhoods. I find the train-riding experience somehow charming, even poetic and certainly creativity stimulating,” he says.

However, he complains Amtrak’s evening train south is hardly convenient for trips to Olympia or Portland, seeing as travellers must make an overnight stopover in Seattle. The Amtrak Cascades is also infrequent and often booked up. Amtrak does offer several “train buses” which Olson has found “super lame” with long border waits. He’d rather take the car if there are no seats on the train, although it did mean a $124 parking bill and a chipped windshield on a recent three-day trip to Seattle. “I know we would’ve enjoyed some work or playing cards or meditating on the train,” he rues.

##

However, the Amtrak Cascades offers a good example of the difficulties faced in enhancing rail services.

For years, Amtrak has wanted to add a second roundtrip train between Eugene and Vancouver. However, congestion due to heavy freight movement on track this side of the border meant that a new siding needed to be added to allow trains to pass. For six years, Canadian and U.S. officials and railroad owners Burlington Northern Santa Fe had been unable to hammer out a deal over who should pay for the upgrade.

That means that a second Amtrak Cascades has been running only as far as Bellingham. Then in March of last year, spurred on by the onset of the 2010 Olympics, B.C. transportation minister Kevin Falcon announced that he was committing “up to $4.5 million” (reportedly 57 per cent of the upgrade cost) to build the siding.

In June last year, Premier Gordon Campbell marked the new service on the platform at King Street Station in Seattle by exchanging a large symbolic train ticket with Washington Governor Chris Gregoire in a photo op.

The siding was completed months ago. Amtrak is ready to go. But the service hit the buffers due to complications with the Canadian Border Services Agency, which reportedly wants $15,000 per day to clear the train.

Graham says the matter is in the hands of the B.C. government. A spokesperson for the province says it’s a federal government issue. Faith St. John, spokesperson for the CBSA, said she could not comment on the matter “because we are in discussions.” But she did say that “decisions to provide CBSA services at a new location or to expand current services take into account human resource requirements and the ability to provide security and service to the public.”

She could not say when the matter would be resolved.

##  

Update, the article “disappeared” from the internets (mostly), 

Print version of Slow Train Coming

Web version of Slow Train Coming [archived link via WayBack]

Rolling Elsewhere: Japan trains / various incl. Kanazawa and Yokohama

Roll around Japan with ambient train window views from various locations and rolling stock including the Thunderbird Limited Express towards Kanazawa and a Shinkansen service from Yokohama towards Osaka. In situ sound with no narration or drama rather a rather meditative “space cruise” looking as rice fields, towns and stations go past, and occasionally abstract from the speed, plus the whooshing of zipping through tunnels. That’s all. Enjoy the ride. 

Rolling Elsewhere: Sitayama / Unazuki Onsen, Toyama (Japan)

Rolling various local quirky trains from rustic Sitayama station towards the mountains on Toyama and Unazuki Onsen station – not chronologic or accurate, just ambient views of rolling stock, carriage interiors, watching from windows, as well as catching trains going by.

Mixed with music by Dan Mangan, “Tragic Turn of Events (demo)” from “Nice Nice Very Nice (10 year anniversary)”

Note:
Sitayama: https://goo.gl/maps/i4Vq3xfG7weVfx9M9
Unazuki Onsen: https://goo.gl/maps/crnF9NC2hZ5jKFJ58 

More space cruises – by train, tuk tuk, float plane and occasional taxis – from global locales

Rolling Elsewhere: Toyama, Japan (mostly)

Ambient views from various trains’ windows rolling past rice fields, towns and stations in and around Toyama, Japan (mostly) – No narration, action, plot or really context of any kind, just views and the pleasant clackety-clack of trains (with various station announcements if you really wanna know where the train was passing) on a journey in May 2019.