Almost exactly 2 years ago today, October 23Â 2012, IÂ was on the first full day of my third trip to Japan, a month-long excursion I called “Nerdtour 2012” (I blogged it on this site). Â One of the best places I went was this little slice of old Tokyo park design, called Kiyosumi Garden. Â It was just about 1 or 1.25 miles up the road from the apartment I stayed at, and my buddy John had been there before, so on a somewhat rainy day we set off to see this. Â It’s a nicely laid-out park, with a large pond or small lake in the middle, beautiful landscaping, and more turtles in one place than I had seen in a long time! Â I took this picture of a couple having their picture taken, I don’t know if they were models, or of they were a genuine couple preparing to get married. Â Either way, it was a stroke of luck getting this shot from across the lake, given it had been raining off and on with breaks in the clouds allowing the sun to shine. Â I plan to go back sometime in the next year, if all goes well, if not, then the year after. Â There is so much more of Japan to see!
Pangborn and Herndon, unsung heroes of aviation history, along with “Miss Veedol!” This monument is right at the entrance to the grounds of the Misawa Aeronautics and Science Museum, in Misawa, Japan.Most people have heard of Charles Lindbergh and his historic non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in his “Spirit of St. Louis” airplane, but how many have heard of Clyde Pangorn and Hugh Herndon, much less their airplane, the “Miss Veedol?”
A plaque describing the flight of Pangborn and Herndon in the “Miss Veedol” in 1931.In 1927 Charles Lindbergh set out from New Jersey, in order to prove it was possible to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean, which hadn’t been done before. His success stirred the imagination of imitators around the world, and in 1931 two men decided to try to fly non-stop across the Pacific Ocean, a feat that would cover almost twice the distance and take 41 hours!
The full-sized (non-flying) replica of the “Miss Veedol” in the Misawa Aeronautics and Science MuseumOriginally intending to fly around the world for a world record, they had to abandon their attempt in Russia, near northern Japan. Instead, they decided to try to fly non-stop across the Pacific (the $25,000 prize the Asahi Shimbun newspaper offered for the feat wouldn’t have hurt!) Modifying their Bellanca J-300 airplane to hold almost twice the normal amount of fuel, they barely took off from Sabishiro Beach in Misawa, northern Japan, dropping their landing gear along the flight to save weight. Pangborn even left his boots in Japan, just to shave off a few pounds! The two men apparently didn’t get along on their flight, which is kind of understandable when you see how small the plane was, while holding two pilots alternating flying, sitting alongside fuel containers for nearly two days straight!
After many harrowing moments in the flight (at one point Pangborn had to climb out to manually detach a couple of supports from the landing gear they had dropped!) they finally arrived in the skies over Washington State. They thought about flying on to Boise Idaho to add more distance to their record, but weather prevented them, and they tried several other airports in Washington State with no success. Finally they had to land, and they picked a field in Wenatchee, Washington, where they made a belly-landing damaging the propeller. They succeeded, and both the towns of Misawa and Wenatchee honor their flight, Misawa with a giant Aeronautics and Science Museum (where I took the pictures here), and Wenatchee with a National Historical site, as well as a full-sized, flying re-creation of the original “Miss Veedol”. The two towns consider themselves “Sister Cities”, and the aviation club that built the new “Miss Veedol” actually flew it over in Japan, where it was on display in the museum in Misawa.
I hope this wasn’t too boring a story, but I wanted to help spread the word about the courage and strength of will that these two unsung heroes showed in their historic feat of aviation!
My journey on the Enoden line continued, leaving Hase and the Great Buddha, and heading for Enoshima. Â Along the way, though, through one of the windows on the train I spotted the ocean, and thought “that looks neat, I want to see the beach!” Â So, I persuaded my buddy John that we should get off at the next station, named “Shichirigahama.”
[one_third][/one_third][one_third][/one_third][one_third_last][/one_third_last]Turns out that it’s well-known for its surf, and there were a whole lot of surfers taking advantage of the mild November afternoon and evening.
[one_third][/one_third][one_third][/one_third][one_third_last][/one_third_last]There were also a lot of people just out enjoying the beach, taking in the sun. There’s something about a beach, with the waves crashing on the shore that’s just peaceful and relaxing, makes it easy to get into a contemplative mood, or even to just “veg-out”.
[one_third][/one_third][one_third][/one_third][one_third_last][/one_third_last]My buddy John also found, um, “other” views as well…  “So, not so disappointed at stopping here now, are you John?”
[one_third][/one_third][one_third][/one_third][one_third_last][/one_third_last]Shichirigahama reminded me very much of southern California, especially around the Sunset Beach area I visited a long time ago.  Sunset Beach was aptly named, and Shichirigahama’s sunset was equally stunning, I kept taking pictures and videos every few minutes, just to try to capture the view. I even got to get a picture of Mount Fuji, but just like in 2007, all I could get was a silhouette shot…
Here’s one of the videos I took, of the Sun just disappearing behind the mountains beyond Enoshima Island. Â You can see more of the pictures at my portfolio site.
So, after riding the Enoden for a few minutes, it was time to get off at the station in Hase town, where the Great Buddha (Daibutsu) of Kamakura is situated. Like most of the towns along the Enoden, Hase is a tourist town, making the most of the local attraction. A lot of tourists come because of the Buddhist aspect, and a lot more come just to gawk (yeah, I’m guilty of the latter.)
Not being Buddhist myself, I didn’t get the spiritual feeling, but as a techie, to me the Great Buddha is an impressive engineering feat! Cast in bronze sometime in the 13th Century, the statue is hollow, allowing people to go inside for a mere 20 yen (about 30 cents US). Â The temple grounds around are also very impressive, with sculptures both man-made and natural.Â
This day was particularly fun, because there was a tour group from an elementary school, and some of the kids were split up into groups, each group assigned to speak to a foreigner in order to practice their English. Â The group that approached me and my buddy John did a very good job of introducing themselves, asking if they could ask questions, and handled their English fairly well. Â The questions were basic, “Where are you from?” type questions. Â It was fun watching them “ambush” other foreigners, too, although I have to wonder if all of the foreign tourists spoke English.
So, here is the gallery of photos I took in and around Hase and the Great Buddha of Kamakura.
So, I’m updating (only a year later!) with some more photos from my Nerdtour of Japan! This will broken up into a couple of sets of photos that are going to be on my portfolio site, but I’ll update here when I update there!
So, on this day I rode the Enoden train, a historic train line that runs from Kamakura to Fujisawa, with the main stop in the middle, at Enoshima Island. Enoshima has been a tourist spot since the days of the Shogun, and the Enoden gets its name from “Enoshima Dentetsu“, Enoshima Electric Railway. Kamakura is famous for its large statue of Buddha, which I will post in another set of photos. The train runs along the beach on the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo, with stops at several beach towns along the way. I stopped at one of these, Shichirigahama, which turned out to have a nice view of Enoshima Island, as well as Mount Fuji (but only in silhouette, as usual…). It very much reminded me of the beach towns of southern California, especially with the surfers, and apparently the Enoshima area is known internationally for its surf. After spending way too much time in Shichirigahama, I continued on to Fujisawa in the evening, but due to failing batteries I didn’t get many photos of the city.
This set of photos is from the first leg of the day trip, from Etchujima station near Monzennakacho, through Tokyo Station and Kamakura Station, and sights along the Enoden to Hase.
So, I uploaded some more Japan pictures to my portfolio site, these are pictures I took on my last day there. It was appropriately cold and rainy, to match my gloomy mood. These are photos mostly of Chiba, including riding on and watching the Chiba Monorail. Also got pictures of some of the runners in the Chiba Ekiden marathon, which passed right by the monorail and JR stations in Chibaminato.
So, hop on over and enjoy (don’t be too depressed at the gloom!) the gallery!
There’s a musical group in Japan called “World Order“, started by a former kick-boxer and now choreographer and composer (why have just one career?) named Genki Sudou. The group has made several music videos, and their signature style is to dress in expensive business suits and march in robotic unison through crowded streets in Tokyo, followed by pop and lock dancing to music composed by Sudou. They’ve been featured in ads for some companies in Japan, as well as performing in different placesaround the world.
Since Tokyo won the rights to the 2020 Summer Olympics, “World Order” made a “Welcome to Tokyo” video, where they perform their song and dance in various famous (and not so famous) places in Tokyo, such as Akihabara, Asakusa, Ginza, Roppongi, and Tokyo Tower. It was neat seeing this, because I’ve been to most of the places they perform in this video, which makes me wish I had been there when they were recording this! Seeing familiar places also makes me want to go back again, although with my current employment situation that’s not going to be possible for a few more years.
At any rate, here is “World Order” performing their song “World Order” in Tokyo.
So, I thought I’d try to be a little artistic with another one of my photos from Japan. I see all kinds of “art” photos where the photographer uses grainy black and white, so I thought I’d do the same with one of my more-or-less “artistic” photos, converting the nice clean crisp color photo to this B&W thing. This is a shot of one of the platforms at Tokyo Station. I was headed to Yokohama for the day, and it was well past rush hour so there was hardly a person there. “Crowded Tokyo” is very selective in its appearance.
I don’t know if this works as “art” or not, since I’m not an artist, but here it is anyway! I guess it kind of looks like an old photo, or something…
So, I uploaded some more Japan pictures to my 
