There are quite several subway lines in Boston, making traveling by public transportations not too painful. Most of the stations do not have anything that can be called platform. The trains looks much higher and monstrous than those in Tokyo or some other cities in the world.
Fares are quite reasonable, especially for long distant riders, since it is a flat charge of $2.00 for adults. Fixtures on the train either metal or solid plastics, most of them quite old with fading colors.
No time tables are visible anywhere and there are not many trains per hour anyway. What one needs is patient.
On the other hand, trains in Tokyo are mostly following exact schedules, to the seconds. Whenever the train is late, the conductors will apologize repeatedly, from station to station. The result? Accidents happened because the drivers have to try too hard observing the schedules. The most famous one is the Amagasaki rail crash. To catch up the delay of about 1 minute and 30 seconds, the driver overshot and derailed the train, killing 106 passengers.
I will rather wait longer for the train, and live longer.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Trains in Boston
The queue waiting for bus in a raining day
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| the queue starts from the left side, makes u turn about 20m down | and then to the right |
Tokyo metropolitan government
The buildings of Tokyo metropolitan government are among the most controversial structures in Japan. The above building is one of the trio, which costs about a total of 150 billion yen. Its high is 243 meter and it is the 6th highest sky scraper in Japan (the highest building in Japan is the Landmark Tower in Yokohama; 295.8 m).Forgetting about the political issues, it is in fact one of my favorite places to go in Tokyo. The top decks (both north and south) are open to the public, for free. In a fine day, I can take very nice pictures from it.
No need to say, it is among the must-go list for tourists. Each time I go there, I can see people from different countries, and speaking all kinds of languages.
At least it should have helped to pay back the cost indirectly, in attracting more tourists to this boring and depressing city.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Incredible Solitaire Bug on palm T|X
The palm with Solitaire that goes to nowhere
The enlarged screen. An impossible sceneI have seen many bugs, and created many by myself, but it is the first time for me to see a bug in such a simple and straight forward game.
Frankly speaking, palm's touch screen is too hard to use. It permanently needs to calibrate. The purchase of a nice cover for it becomes a stupid investment, because I need to take it off from time to time, to reset it. Still, it became an even bigger surprise when the King of Heart suddenly jumped to the foundation, before any other cards. I could still go on playing with other moves. After a while, the screen becomes even funnier, with both heart king and hart Ace occupying one foundation each.
There is no any retouch tricks with the pictures, except that my low end camera has not done a great job. But thanks to palm, I have added a rare picture to my collections.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Akihabara - Snapshots
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| The starting point | The south part |
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| The JR Station | The shop street |
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| More shops | The south end |
Manseibashi to the South of Akihabara
On the bridge, to the westMap is here.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
A Bee and a Worm
This monster bee (is it a bee?) dived right on to the worm, killed it within ten seconds, and flew away with the bait between her jaws. Did not know that bees also eat worms. It is slightly longer than one centimeters long.
Not Only Bees are the Worshipper of Flowers!
The breez made it almost impossible to have good focus. Still I can seet this guy eating the pollen happily, while having a bad table manner, with food over her mouth.
The Spider
Somehow it looks like squid to me. Maybe we are really all connected, and all came from the sea. The lenght is about 5 millimeter
The Fly
They are not really human being's favorte existance, but ignoring the context (the environment that it enjoys most), it is not really a horrible looking guy, maybe just similar to crows (speaking of witch, they have similar colors) that are disliked by Chinese and considered something of bad luck.
Don't ever think of it!
The subject is no any insect or beatles, but the conquror of a lizard. She constantly kept her warning eyes on my when I took this picture. I felt sorry for her, as she was just about to settle down and enjoy her lunch.
But isn't it something rare in the cities now to see a cat catching any bait from the nature? There are always people feeding the wild cats nowadays. Just like how the pigeons are being fed in the parks.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Don't Be Shy!
Don't know whether the sun is getting too shy, or the clouds are getting too aggressive. I have lost the final ray of sunlight today. Will have to wait for another shiny day to take more close range pictures.
Landing
This guy must have climbed up the grass nearby and finnaly is able to land on this piece of dream land.
Strawberry, but wild?
Anyway, it is called Yama (Mountain) Ichigo (Strawberry) in Japanese.
Looks very juicy and delicious, and said to be so.
How are you doing?
Asked the ant to the ladybird....."Well, not bad. But can't that guy focus on me a bit more seriously?" Replied the ladybird.
Ladybird, the orange version
At least I should have got this fellow's name right. Orange (or yellowish) version is not much I have seen before.
Relative of Ladybird?
This little fellow is less than 5mm long in size.
Not that I cared much about its name. But what is its name?
The length is about 2mm.
Ready...Attack!
This tiny spider responded to the approach of my camera, which has macro lens and can get very close to the subject.
