Kyoto Railway Museum
 

Kyoto Railway museum is close to Kyoto station and only 3 mins from Umekoji-Kyotonishi Station on the JR line ( easy access from east kyoto via the Tozai subway line connecting at Nijo station to JR line. Lots to do if it is a rainy day ( though the viewing terrace and the roundhouse for steam trains are better in dry weather). Driving simulators are extra yen and the Diorama is impressive ( shows around every hour where trains move but only 170 seats so you may want to get there a few minutes early to get a seat. Easy to spend several hours here. Couple of trains have below ground walkways so you can see underneath the carriages

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Main hall of railway museum. Shinkansens are also to the right and outside by the entrance

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Diorama during the show with the trains moving and details of the trains shown on the wall. Wall changes colour to reflect the day ie dark first thing, then blue then orange as now then dark blue for night. Even had a Dr Yellow shinkansen. Probably best place to sit is in the middle ( I was at the right hand side)

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Shinkansen heading into Kyoto station from viewing terrace ( local trains also visible) . Kyoto tower at far left. Would be beautiful on a nice day- lots of rain when i was there though but still very enjoyable

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The roundhouse with steam engines ( and Thomas the tank engine)

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Early model shinkansen with an old station waiting room and sweet store at the Kyoto railway museum

regards

TBS

I remember when these were the main models on the Tokaido line, and the Grand Hikari running the full length from Tokyo to Hakata had a restaurant car. Those were the days. Though admittedly faster and more comfortable now.

Hi,

Thanks. At the Nagoya railway museum you could go in the double decker restaurant car ( kitchen lower deck and restaurant car on the upper deck) as well as the early shinkansens Got some photos on my other memory cards ( took a lot of photos during 6 weeks). Need to dig the card out and select a few for uploading

Regards

TBS

Tenpozan Ferris Wheel osaka
 

Hi,
After climbing Mt Tempozan:D, in osaka i went to the aquarium but there were large crowds. Surprisingly , the ferris wheel had no wait for standard cabins ( small queue for the glass floor cabin) so went on it ( only Y900 for the 15 min ride round ) and got some nice views .You could make out the Expo but there was some reflected glare. It was nice to sit down for a while after the morning at the expo70 park

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View of the aquarium from the ferris wheel


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View towards central osaka from the ferris wheel. Universal studios Japan out of sight to the left of the bridge. Mt Tempozan sign just to the right of the stone monument at bottom left of the picture


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The sign for Mt Tempozan ( needing some tlc) . The smallest officially designated mountain in Japan at 4.53m
Regards

TBS

Chuo-dori street Ginza, Sunday afternoon
 

Hi,

Chuo-dori street ( closed on Sunday afternoons) on a sunday during golden week ( busy but was expecting it to be worse). Did see a small pro-palestine protest group at the northern end. Nice rooftop garden on top of Ginza Six

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Chuo-dori street Ginza Tokyo on a sunday afternoon ( 330pm)

Regards

TBS

Yokohama early May
 

Hi,

From Yokohama Osanbashi pier (on a very wet day). Diamond Princess cruise ship ( 290 m long) was boarding passengers ( you could hear the group numbers being called). View from the pier is terrific at night towards Minato Mirai. Cloud base below the top of the landmark tower. It was impressive to see the ship close up and see just how large it is ( even though there are a lot larger ships)

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Diamond Princess and Minato Mirai, Yokohama on a wet day


Regards

TBS

I wrote a TR heavy on destination pictures. Rather than double post all the photos here I will just point to it :)
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip...yama-kobe.html

Some nice photos but id be pissed if my photo on my public transit was plastered on some TR for japan no matter how artistic the photographer thought.

Well without doing a debate, street photography i.e. taking pictures of people in public spaces and publishing for non commercial work is completely legal and considered part of freedom of expression in Japan. So if you personally want to avoid this, you need to be sure you live and travel in countries where it would be considered illegal.

Legal does not make it right. Just makes it jerky and disrespectful.

Japanese law considers that individuals have "portrait rights." Courts have sided with individuals whose images were shared over social media for non-commercial purposes. As for what is considered socially acceptable, I feel the same as the previous poster.

Telling people who live in a country that you're visiting to go live somewhere else if they don't like your way of asserting what you think are your rights ... that's something special.

The civil courts have sided with defendants in the case they thought the picture was either used to promote something or was a violation of their privacy.
And practically, I am very visible when I take picture, I always show my intent before taking the picture and if someone tells me no, I don't. I don't take or publish pictures which I feel violate privacy (sick people, people entering some establishments in entertainment districts, etc ...). Taking pictures in public transport is its own form of street photography and has been socially acceptable since the 80's.

clearly it's not. Creepy and perhaps acceptable with people that don't respect others. At least they were not children or young adults.

Portrait rights in Japan is an interesting topic. I understand it's customary to ask people about taking their photos (and I myself got a "no" a few times). But there are also lots of live webcams all over Japan transmitting images in sufficient quality to recognize people - and they don't seem to bother anyone...

Here is a shot of the cab of that very same series 500 taken in July 1997…

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We were passing through a tunnel south of Okayama