I found this cartoon map of my area at Usui train station. I can tell it's my 'hood' because of the giant Dutch windmill just left of center (Eww! I said left of center). It blends in here about as well as I do. Only my geek friends will get this: The windmill reminds me of Sim City for the Super Nintendo. When you reached a nominal level of success growing your city, you would start receiving gifts to place around town. At first they were cool gifts, like the mayor's mansion or a police headquarters, but soon the game designers ran out of ideas. After progressing through the game for a while you would receive weird buildings like, well like a giant Dutch windmill. You'd have to plop it in your city somewhere so that you could receive the next gift, but sometimes it just didn't fit with the concept you had going on. That must have been what happened here.Now on to my point: I am inheriting a very nice bicycle after the break from a teacher who has finished his reign and I would like to go exploring. This map is exactly the info I am looking for, but it would be ever so much more helpful in English. I know translating is a pain in the ass, so if you only want to cover a number or two, just leave them in the comments section and let the other bi-fluents pick up the slack. In case you were unaware: Mup, Alex, Masako, Daisuke, Ben and Brad- I'm looking at you. Thank you very much in advance!
ps- Don't forget to click on the pics for the full size version. And also, there is no number, but I'd really like to know the meaning of the bearded tourist and giant peanut walking hand in hand. Really really. Here are the close ups:
7 comments:
Hi Gail, it's Brian. I'm quite enjoying reading your blog, though I must say I'm more than a little envious! Anyway, here's the first half of the items listed on the map. You'll notice that under each of them there's the same sentence, just with different numbers near the end. These simply mean, for example in the first one, "about a 20 minute walk from Sakura Station." I've put in some extra notes for things you'll see a lot that will be useful to remember.
1) National Museum of Japanese History
[The last three characters mean (non-art) museum]
2) Sakura Castle Ruins Park
[These last two characters are "Public Park"]
3) Sakura Castle Samurai House
4) Makata (Shinto) Shrine [www.makata.jp]
[Anything that ends with these last two characters is a Shinto shrine]
5) Tsukamoto Art Museum
[These last three characters are "art museum"]
6) Sakura City Art Museum
7) Sakura New-town Museum of Noh Music
8) Jundai-ji (Buddhist temple)
[The last character indicates a Buddhist temple. You'll notice that all the Buddhist temples are called somethingsomething-ji.]
9) Sakura Gardens (on the grounds of the old moat)
10) Sakura Heavenly Order Hall Memorial
[Apparently a memorial for a man who helped to introduce Western medical knowledge in the early 19th century]
11) Sakura High School
12) Sakura Country Club
13) The Two Iwana Guardian Buddhas
[This appears to be the central attraction at a place called temple called Gyokusen-ji.]
This is fun! Maybe I'll come back and do the rest if no one else does. Keep having fun, Gail!
Thanks Brian! I didn't know you could read kanji! Now I am the envious one. When did you learn, and how?
Speaking of Left of Center...
...did you know that your computer suddenly and unceremoniously died?
hi megan, she didn't take it camping with her, and should be back online next monday, i think.
or, did you mean her computer at work?
:) I'm glad she's camping without electronics!
I meant her old UCD "Left of Center" computer.
Hi Gail. I've been working on kanji for several months now. The singlemost helpful thing for me has been a good concise kanji dictionary. I've been using one called Kanji & Kana by Hadamitzky & Spahn, published by Charles E. Tuttle Co. The Kanji Learner's Dictionary is also a very good one. The best place to start is by learning how to count the stroke in a character and identify radicals. These books introduce this quite well. There's also a great online dictionary here: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C
Using those things I've made a lot of flash cards for individual characters, starting with those that are most commonly occurring. Looking up things that one sees a lot is also a good way of proceeding. I've also been using a flashcard software thingie called Anki. It's an ongoing process, of course, but the more one learns the more they make sense... mostly. : )
Here's the rest of the list:
14) Iwana Exercise Park
15) Iino Kannon [Boddhisatva of Compassion]
16) Sakura Fields Student Plantation (Whistle Hill)
17) Sakura City Public Forest
18) Yachou Forest
19) Eiji Kichikawa Monument
20) Iino Divine Dragon Bridge (!)
21) Sakura Old-Town Commons
22) Someone Someone Monument [can't figure this one out]
23) Inba Marsh Prefectural Park
24) Ota Zusho Grave
25) Usui Castle Ruins
26) Raiten [Thunderbolt] Memorial (at Myouken-ji)
Thanks Brian!! I caught the Kanji fever on vacation and now I am determined to read rather than throwing my hands in the air. Im taking the JLPT 4 in December so I have work to do. Also, I was given the kanji dictionary for the DS and it is the closest thing to magic I have ever seen. On the ferry back from Shikoku I drew the kanji painted on the car ramp and it came right up "slow down" I was so impressed I yelled 'holy shit!' right in the middle of a crowd of families. Luckily for all they know I said 'I love ferries!'
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