Saturday, October 14, 2006
12 Million Bicycles
... in Beijing, as we all know, however there are a pretty serious number here as well, and you are allowed to ride them on the pavement which is good from a cyclist saftey point of view but not so much from a pedestrian point of view...
However it may be helped a bit because I have had a bit of a realisation; now it took 24 hours for me to notice, and I thought it was odd that people seemed to be trying to cycle into me whenever I walked down the right hand side of the pavement, but everyone drives on the left a behavior which I thought was reserved for Aussies, Kiwis and us but it seems not.
In fact far from the culture shock that everyone had warned me about Japan seems much more like the UK than America does after all:
-It is a smallish island
-The population density is really high
-Public transport exists and people use it
-People drive cars (not trucks or SUVs)
-As mentioned they drive on the left
-Long Distance trains are really expensive
-People from whom the current inhabitants descend have been living here for over a thousand years
-Various invasions and idea have come from and gone to the nearby continent
-It used to be ruled by shoguns and emperors and various king like people and now it is a demoracy
-The oldest building are religious are go back several hundred years unlike all the modern housing around them
They do have an interesting law here which is illustrated thus:
However it may be helped a bit because I have had a bit of a realisation; now it took 24 hours for me to notice, and I thought it was odd that people seemed to be trying to cycle into me whenever I walked down the right hand side of the pavement, but everyone drives on the left a behavior which I thought was reserved for Aussies, Kiwis and us but it seems not.
In fact far from the culture shock that everyone had warned me about Japan seems much more like the UK than America does after all:
-It is a smallish island
-The population density is really high
-Public transport exists and people use it
-People drive cars (not trucks or SUVs)
-As mentioned they drive on the left
-Long Distance trains are really expensive
-People from whom the current inhabitants descend have been living here for over a thousand years
-Various invasions and idea have come from and gone to the nearby continent
-It used to be ruled by shoguns and emperors and various king like people and now it is a demoracy
-The oldest building are religious are go back several hundred years unlike all the modern housing around them
They do have an interesting law here which is illustrated thus:
So then they have these bus shelter type things designated as smoking points which have loads of people gathered round smoking
Anyway I also went to the main temple in Tokyo at Asakusa (shown below) which was very crowded with tourists (I appreciate that it doesnt look that way in the photo but it was) hopefully Kyoto wont be this busy (hopes desperatly and probably in vain...
So there we go
Barny
# posted by Barny @ 10:42 AM 
