Walking on Rainbow Bridge – Japan

Okay, let me summarize my experience in walking on the rainbow bridge, which happened yesterday as mentioned in my Untitled Day Blog.

One of the major attractions of Tokyo is the Rainbow Bridge which connects the Tokyo to Odaiba. Let me describe the approach to the bridge normally it comes end of the article, but for the user comfort I decided to post it here. One can travel on Rainbow Bridge by motor vehicles on the double deck roads or by Yorikamome unmanned trains or by foot. You know now I’m going to write about crossing the rainbow bridge by foot.

As a regular practice Japanese always make things artificially competing with the nature’s civil structure. I think Rainbow Bridge is also one among that kind of creation. If you Google for the word Rainbow Bridge you will not land in Japan instead you will land in Glen Canyon Rainbow Bridge which is one of the gifts to the earth by our mother nature. The Glen Canyon’s Rainbow Bridge is made of Navajo sandstone a detailed information could be found on the Internet. I suggest before or after complete reading this article knows the information about the said Rainbow Bridge.

Okay now come to my post, In the Edo’s period [1603-1868] of Japan the man made island odaiba has been created, I wonder their ability to create such a big island on the sea without today’s most modern technology equipments. There used to be water bound transport to the odaiba for long time. Now the odaiba is connected to Japan via, underwater roads, and underwater trains and over the rainbow bridge with road and Yorikamome transports.

To get on to the Rainbow Bridge we need to get down at Shibaura-futo Station from Yorikamome while traveling from Shimbashi station to Daiba station. Take a short walk say 10mins from Shibaura-futo station to the Rainbow bridge entrance. If you confused with the directions you can always seek the assistance of the Yorikamome staff that are really keen in helping people at the stations. When it happen to me, inspite of my language problem the staff came along till the station gate and showed me the way to reach Rainbow Bridge. Near the entrance board there was a ash tray for smoking but normally very less crowded or sometimes one or two people get into the rainbow bridge by foot. Hence the entrance place is not at all having the human smell. So, we decided to smoke at the entrance, immediately some helicopter on top of our head looking at us and rounding on the sky till we complete the smoke. I hoped it was a security or police helicopter to monitor unwanted activities on the bridge. But later we started walking towards the entrance the helicopter moved away.

There was a ramp to get on to the first floor of the rainbow bridge from there we need to take the elevator which carries us to the 7th floor of the building. That is the rainbow bridge first deck with the road. From there you’re walking starts on Rainbow Bridge. Actually the rainbow bridge could be dived in to three civil structures one is the road supported by concrete pillars which actually the connection points to the bridge, second are the connection between the concrete pillar holding roads to the main support pillars [the 2 giant steel pillars] and the third is the place which is floating with the stay wires of the two giant steel pillars. Since we came via the elevator directly to the 7th floor building to start our walk we have straight landed in the connection structure between concrete and steel pillars. Due to the civil construction technology this place was really floating. Whenever there was a truck passing by the bridge shakes heavily creating a scary feeling in the mind, as I was going to cross the entire bridge over the sea.

We were slowly started moving on the bridge looking at the beauty of artificial important of the human world. It was totally a different experience for a person who came from the natures bed India. The sides of the bridge were protected with steel nets against anybody falling from top or other accidental prevention purposes.
While moving forward the walk gave me a excellent view of waterfront area. In a short while I have reached the main steel pillar that area the pedestrian path goes little out of the core bridge and goes rounding the pillar. There they have made some window to look outside and photograph the city. It was really cool. When our foot touched the main bridge area it was present experience to see the Yorikamome lines covered in a caged tunnel setup and trucks passing on the deck. Also looking at outside the bridge you can point huge ships and boats passing through under the bridge a must see seen.The ceiling of 1st deck inside the bridge is too good texture for photography purpose. While I was walking over I have seen several photographers carrying huge and hi-fi camera kit along. I had only my tiny Canon PowerShot S3 IS, as I have started to shoot my first digital photographs. But I was amazed with that little camera’s performance; in fact it convinced me a migration is mandatory from film to digital now.

Later about 30 minutes walk with photography I have reached the second main pillar, and then we moved to the final part of the bridge. Soon after few foot distance there was a steps from the pedestrian path going under the bridge. I was wonder whether it is for public to use or for some other technical issues they have it there. Because I couldn’t read anything over the board as it was written in Japanese Kanji. Anyhow I somehow changed my mind and started stepping down to the steps, finally after reaching the bottom part of the first desk I found that it is made for crossing the bridge from one side to another used by pedestrians. This subway setup reaching the other side of the bridge’s pedestrian path; however from the same point the pedestrian’s path started parting from the main bridge and forms a new pedestrian bridge. I could see now several smaller and bigger bridge branches are start parting from the main bridge.

Now I almost was reaching the end of the Rainbow Bridge spending about an hour over the bridge. It was landing in the Daiba; the landing area has a gate with a security personal sitting on a booth. You can obtain some information about the Rainbow Bridge over there. I think it’s for a person who starts from Daiba to walk on the bridge.

As I have stated in my initial paragraph Daiba is a man made island. When build they wanted to use these islands also a protection area to protect the City against attacks from the sea. We all know the history in the ancient days the oceans or sea oriented wars are the most common and important in the history. Hence they have built the forts to protect the city from Odaiba [In Japanese it means Fort]. One of the old fort is still exhibited near the landing area of rainbow bridge called Odaiba kahihin [see the picture].

The scenic view of Tokyo city from the Rainbow Bridge is providing enormousness fun. Looking at the Tokyo tower from Tbe Bridge is too good. I liked the way these people organized the walk path of the bridge. Whatever the Japanese and Nature always has contrast and the war between artificial and nature is always happening here.

I hope blog gives some insight of Rainbow Bridge walking experience, to encourage me visit: http://www.camera-friendly.com

Untitled Day

I have geared up today to test run my new Canon S3 IS camera. Hence decided to re-visit Odaiba. So from Shin-Ekota to Daimon traveled in the Oedo Line subway train and from there on a JR line landed in Shimbashi. But today I had taken the 800Yen daily pass in the Yorikamome, to discover new places in the yorikamome path.

Immediately after 3 stations I got down to walk on the Rainbow bridge, I forget to mention I had my pal Naveen with me. Its was real fun walking on top of the rainbow bridge, lots of photographs I have clicked standing on top of the Bay of Japan. It almost took 1 hour for me to cross the entire bridge. Later we landed in the Daiba, spent some times on the old fort kind of area, but I couldn’t ask anybody what is that. Then looking at some cool sight around passed another 2 hours.

We had decided to visit the whole stretch of Yorikamome, fortunately we could make it up. But when we had reached the Maritime Museum in odaiba it was almost 5:00PM, the closing time mentioned the board as 6:00PM hence without entering in to the museum, I have return back to the Daiba after taking few maritime photos from the shore side of Bay of Tokyo.

I had real nice opportunity today to utilize the new camera, I have taken night shots of the Rainbow bridge and good aerial snaps of surrounding from Rainbow Bridge. The mentioned pictures will be made available soon in www.camera-friendly.com and here also after a while.

Actually, I had the disposable batteries loaded in the camera but it was exhausted due to my extradinary use of the camera. I couldn’t buy a spare so, I was using Naveen’s S3 IS till the evening, later I barrowed his batteries and loaded on my camera to take the night shots. While leaving from the place I had returned his batteries so, my camera was left without power. On the way back to shinjiku I have picked up some Sony 2500 rechargable batteries and came home. Its put on the power source for charge, so after completing the charge I may be able to download the pictures to my laptop. Till then the blog will be without images. Take care.

Meanwhile visit: http://www.camera-friendly.com

Trains of Japan

The effective use of public transport is a key feature of Japan. Here almost all the visitors get surprise by seeing the different types of public transports start from buses to air-buses. However Trains are the widely used transport facility for Japanese; no where in the world one can see a maximum number of different trains and types. To name a few:

• Shinkansen
• Yorikamome
• Monorail
• Rapid tracks
• Subway trains

Shinkansen

The second fastest train in the world is shinkansen, these trains can reach upto 350kms per hour. Initially this train introduced between Tokyo and Osaka. I heared many people use to compare Tokyo and Osaka as Newyork and San Francisco respectively. Later the shinkansen were introduced other part of the country, today one can travel almost all major cities of japan through shinkansens. The worlds fastest train is in France, however the 2^nd version of shinkansens are underway to go for test run in Japan, that may overtake France in the near future. Shinkansens are introduced four decades before this post.

Yorikamome

Yurikamome an un-manned, elevated train with rubber tires connects the man made island called odaiba district of Tokyo to rest of Tokyo city. This train also travels on top of the famous Rainbow bridge. This train is more than a transport considered a attraction to the tourist as it travels on the shore side of Bay of Tokyo. One can really enjoy sitting inside the train with the scenic view of Tokyo.

Monorail

Another key attraction in Japan is their monorail tracks, There were about elevan monorails operational in Japan. When somebody gets into the monorail for the first time I’m sure they are gonna feel like floating in the air. This train is actually run on a single concrete beam with magnetic and wheels assisted. It’s a fun traveling the monorail as you can see it goes up down and sometimes under the ground and some time over the flyover. The first mono rail in Japan was introduced about 1958 inside the Japan's largest zoo called Ueno park. The Ueno park monorail runs for just 90seconds covering 0.3 kms and between two stations inside the park. The Tokyo Mono Rail which runs between Hamamatcho station to Haneda Airport is the busiest and most successful monorail in the world. This monorail has 6 coches with different trpes of seating arrangment and can go upto 80kms speed. There again two types of mono rail operated by Tokyo Monorail, one is the Rapid which stops only 4 stations and other one is local which stops in all the ten stations.

Subway trains

The most utilised train system under the ground all over tokyo. I doubt if anybody in tokyo try to make a borewell may probably get stuck with the subway train system. As the subways are like a mesh or net under the tokyo. I was asking my friend here, So much of subway tunnels are here will it not create a hollow under tokyo? But my question makes sense if you really look at the subway train tracks, its well connected and there are several lines running there and here of tokyo everywhere. The beauty is that each line is under another line, and the tokyo facilities are still growing and everyday there is a new tunnel work is progressing. The lastest one that operates in tokyo is Oedo Line. However very soon the people of tokyo going to see yet another line under tokyo. siva

This is not all about Japan trains, they have enough models of coches and EMUs, most of the trains are runs with electric power but they also still run some diesel powered trains. The JR lines of japan is also progressively developing new Train facilities every now and then. There are lots of information about the train fares, tickets, daily, monthly and other passes used in these train facilities.

Though the Japanese makes outstanding performance in the railway network, Their train fares are upto the sky. For a daily pass in the Tokyo city you may have to spend about $10, which is nearly equalant montly train expense of India including one long distance trips.

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Freebie marketing

Alright today I have chosen to talk about the popular marketing technology around the world called freebie marketing. But it will be on the view of Japan’s freebie marketing techniques.

Normally a consumer goods [B2C - Business to Customer] company chooses to market it’s product to the end-user via various marketing activities. Especially offering freebies along with the new product or offering non-competitive friendly product as a freebie along with a non-moving item is a common seen. There is another way of marketing is that road shows that will be conducted on a exhibition or another privately organized presentation. While it is in the public crowded areas like exhibition to attract the crowd sometimes the product companies used to hire beautiful females to do their product marketing. By this way the company achieves good mileage on the product brand promotion.

Brand promotion and product marketing are in the parallel lines encouraging each growth by other. But it’s hard to see these brand promotion beauties come on the road to distribute the products for the companies. Well, I said hard but didn’t say impossible. This means the hard things are easy here in Japan. If it sounds biased let me tell you that the easy things are very hard here too!　 hope that makes sense now.

I used to be always spending my free time either in Akihabara or Shinjiku areas, you know Shinjiku is a downtown area and Akihabara is an electronic town. Have seen many girls doing the freebie distributions [No wonder why so much crowded these places are]. When a person like me who can’t speak to any neighboring person will definitely interested in looking at beautiful objects. Here the objects are the freebie marketers [Young and beautiful girls]. Oh boy, here comes the actual content.

In Japan the freebie and brand marketing are most of the time in a same line instead of parallel. Freebies are also considered to be as part of major marketing strategy here. So the young model even stands in the roadside to distribute freebies to the crowd. Some time you can get chance to see a girl distribution facial tissues to promote DVD movies. I have no idea what is the relation on these products. In some cases you will get to see these people distributing tin packed coffees for promoting a cool drink company.

I have seen several times here, the boys are interested in getting email ids of these girls to make a start for new relationship [Freebie marketing worked out for life partner marketing]. Freebie marketing will also makes the actual product sales getting skyrocketing here. One of my friends used to refer these marketing techniques are really worked out well to him and has massive exposure on the product sales as a result.

However freebies in developing nations are consider to be issued with a purchase of another good. Which means, to get a freebie you will be entrusted to make a sale contract for another good. But freebies are really freebies here, no strings attached. Here the product promotions work post freebie method　that who gives more freebie gets most popularity of their brand. In any case all over the world the customers like freebies.

Blogger.com history unveils

After posting the last message below, Today [Oct 13, 2006] morning I have started searching the previous history of blogger.com site downtime. As per status.blogger.com yesterday’s issue has been caused by spammers and congested network issue. But I’m still doubtful if it is a spammer issue only the access to the server would have been an issue. But I have seen entirely a different page instead of blogger.com home page which is well known.

You know blogger.com and blogspot.com have a bad time in almost every year in October month. See the links below to believe me.

This link says Blogger.com has been hacked on October 25, 2002 which apparently caused a downtime to the site. http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1488711

This link by an Indian blogger confirms that blogger.com site was down October 27, 2004. http://pr-india.blogspot.com/2004/10/bloggercom-down-on-wednesday.html

Well, I wish to grab attention of blogger.com technical and security experts to investigate this issue on the above angle, this could be an point to be considered to safeguard future October events.

Here comes the question, Is it still safe to use blogger.com for writting our weblogs. Will there be a security for our efforts writting the blog here ? What if an alternate is chosen say 360.yahoo.com?

Hope Google will not let it's users passing away from this place. As not only the October incidents many times the blogger is continuesly unavailable for hours together.

blogger.com down !

October 12, 2006

Opps... First information, I was eagarly updating my blogger today and unfortunately blogger.com down at 22:51 hrs in Japan. I tryed my level best to reach some techiees in Google but in a vain.

All of sudden in between I was seeing a blog in the blogger.com homepage, Got a doubt! is it hacked ? I updated this blog using beta.blogger.com it is working though. But www.blogger.com and www.blogspot.com are down.

Here is the screen shot of blogger with some xyz blog on the home page. It also took long time to load the page.

I really hoped in the morning after seeing Google taken up my blogger account maintenace with google id instead of a separate blogger Id. Hope they rectify faster. I'm sure it cannot be a problem of the server side or the server administrator side as google is my guru and seen their technical expertise. This is some thing over.

Internet

I have been the user of internet right from the day when India’s first Internet Browsing center opened in 1996. To say the truth I learned many of my System skills over the internet, there are plenty of opportunity to one who loves to do new things; let it be technology, art, fun or business it could be used in all forms.

As I have been using the internet for more than a decade now, I have seen several upgrades world over on the WWW. There was lots of cost cut in the internet bandwidth packages boomed the community grows much faster than any other industry in the world. This change has been properly utilized by the lost glory country India. This country is standing tall among all other countries in the world as IT supreme power. From my experience in the very initial days the internet has been offered to the Indian community with two classifications, one is student shell account and commercial TCP/IP account. While with student account one can browse the internet with text based browsers and read mail with mutt and pine. Days moved the Internet cafes [Browsing parlors] were opened like mushrooms after rain. The hourly charges in browsing parlors down faced its fees from Rs.160/- to Rs.10/-. Internet became an essential for life kind of attribute for the world; I think it’s now hard to even think without email and web. Including me, there will be many ITians who will sit without job if something of this sort happen. Thank God, Internet takes a new shape in a positive angle every day.

During 2000 year, the .com boom came to an end shaking the entire globe to look back their decision on Internet based business investment. But soon it could recover to its normal state and now it’s been officially authorized by many countries as an industry rather. There were changes in the technology which carries the Internet packets from host to host in a wide spectrum ADSL, Dial-up, Radio Frequency Link, Leased Line, IPLS, and VPN etc. Not only on the carriers also had the front end started from black screen shell account to any possible graphical interface that today we use. Lots of customized user interface to behave friendly with the user community.

It doesn’t stop in the design also on the functionality that we were never dreamed of getting free. Yes, Calendar to schedule our tasks, Albums to share the pictures, bloggers to act a person/public diary [I’m just thinking if there is no blogger, how much money we would have been spending on publishing our own thoughts to the public], multiple forms of chat ranging from text to voice making the communication even more easier, flagship utilities like email and web, search engines to crawl the world in lesser than a second, news updates from anywhere in the world, business quote and comparisons, company, product, commodity information, weather forecasting, audio and video broadcasting ….. Wait let me take a break! Opps. too much of to list.

Like I said before the break J we enjoy all forms of world convenient option under a single umbrella called Internet. I think this is one of the largest democratic movements in the world, I comment on Microsoft where my friend wrote his first software which was released under GPL. We may raise voice even against a president of another country when he takes a move which may affect another person. We write everything that we wanted to express, we defend anybody in the world who seems to be making noise. There is no one called owner or master, and nobody called labor in fact internet also has communist culture. We may think of naming this sort as Democommu where there is a blend of democracy and communism. Politics are healthy; people are wealthy more than that Internet makes peace all over the world as nobody needs to fight for anything. No superior and no inferior all are equal and have equal opportunity and responsibility. Who made this wonderful world which has been expected by the human for a long while, Is it God or a man who carries a name and address? It is the unity of the people by adding their skills in some corner of the net Internet.

I wish to use the internet properly to showcase my work, support me by visiting http://www.camera-friendly.com