Categories
Tokyo

Tranquil time in Tokyo

One of the best things I like about Tokyo is that, even though it is one of the most populated cities in the world, if you walk away five minutes from any train station you can find places that metaphorically transport you outside of Tokyo. Sometimes I have the feeling I’m not in Tokyo but in a little village lost in the mountains.

This picture was taken three minutes walking from this other picture last Sunday. There is a kid playing with his Nintendo DS in a park.

sangubashi

sangubashi
And if you look at the top-right corner there is an old woman taking care of the park’s garden.

sangubashi
I walked towards the old woman, and yes! she was “guerrilla gardening”.

sangubashi
I walked by again four hours later and she was still there. But the kid was not.

Name of the post inspired by Tokyo Times “Tranquil time” series.

Categories
Tokyo

Tokyo pictures 2008 – People

From today until the end of the year I’m going to publish some posts with the title “Tokyo pictures 2008”. In each post I will concentrate in different subjects, in this first article the subtitle is “People”. At the end I will put together the best pictures from each post considering your opinions reading the comments from each post. The idea of this series is to capture Tokyo’s 2008 zeitgeist. I used a Nikon D90, a Nikon D40 and a Canon IXY Digital 910 IS to take these pictures.

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Tokyo 2008

Categories
Society Tokyo

Earthquake risk areas in Tokyo

I friend send me a report made by the Tokyo Government that analyzes potential earthquake risk in Tokyo. At the end of the report the conclusion is this map where the orange-red areas are the riskiest ones and the green-blue ones the safest. I live in a blue zone 🙂

Jishin
It looks like Tokyo east area is pretty dangerous.

In order to create these colored map many factors were analyzed. For example, the composition of the soil is one of the most important factors of danger when a earthquake occurs. This is how it is explained in one picture in the Tokyo Government report:

Jishin

The soil composition is one of the most important factors when calculating earthquake disaster risk. For example, in the Kobe earthquake in 1995, the most affected area was full of old house built on top of soil composed mainly by clay and sand. Another of the most important factors is the risk of fire. Areas with many concentrated wood houses are very risky. When a big earthquake disaster happens most of the people die burned. The fire risk is explained in the report with these nice-funny drawings:

Jishin

Jishin

Jishin

Jishin
This is the cover of the Tokyo Government report about earthquake risk areas in Tokyo.