Author: ageekinjapan

Trains

Yurikamome

Yurikamome line is one of my favorite railways in Japan. Is one of the main connections between Tokyo and Odaiba island. Is not really a train, neither a monorail… it works somehow using wheels and traveling on top of an elevated concrete structure. It doesn’t need a driver, everything is controlled by computers. Not having a driver means that you can sit down in the first wagon and enjoy incredible views as if you were controlling the train. I really enjoy Yurikamome line, I feel like I’m in Gotham or New Port

Views from the first wagon.

If you want to give it a try, go to Shinbashi station using Yamanote line and then change to Yurikamome line until Odaiba.

Architecture

Tokyo pyramid

This weekend I watched a Discovery Channel(from youtube) documentary about a huge pyramid that could be built in Tokyo. The pyramid would have the same volume as 55 Gizeh pyramids, and 750.000 people could live inside the structure. It’s an idea from Shimizu corporation that could solve some of the overpopulation we are suffering at Tokyo. It’s an utopia, but still I enjoy imagining the future.

In the first video you can see images from nowadays Tokyo and the place where the pyramid could be placed. Just next next to Odaiba.

In the second part they explain is more in detail some problems that occur when building pyramidal shaped buildings and how those problems could be solved using nanotubes.

Next video shows how robots could play a central role when building such a huge structure. It also introduces as in auto-constructing technologies, buildings that build themselves.

Fourth part finishes explaining self-constructing buildings and continues with transport systems inside the pyramid.They show real images from Yurikamome line, a train that is working without a human driver since some years ago in Tokyo.

While watching the last part we learn how the energy problem could be solved and how the pyramid would be safe against earthquakes and tsunamis.

CaRPe DieM sent me the videos, thx!

JapaneseTV

Pen spinning

It’s amazing how much free time do these guys have 🙂