2009-03-16 36 139

Mon 16 Mar 2009 in Utsunomiya: 36.2662005, 139.5046215 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Participants

starbird/星鳥

Expedition

Part one of a consecutive hash. Part two can be found here.

My first free day in Japan. I intended this as a dry run, to get an idea of how feasible it will be for me to go hashing while I'm here. My hopes for reaching the coordinates were fairly low, because it wasn't clear to me that I could get access to the correct side of the little river next to the point. Also, I don't have a GPS yet.

The points in Tokyo and Chiba (to the east) were in the ocean, so I went north. Tatara is a little town an hour from Tokyo by train. The point is behind the local art museum, on the bank of a small river.

After two subways and two trains, I alighted at Tatara's tiny train station, and walked a mile on roads through the lovely spring weather. Finding my way was easy, because there were signs everywhere showing the way to the museum. I took the bridge across the river to the museum side and walked down the path to where I was opposite the hash, which at this point was across the river from me. (Note: the museum is supposed to be interesting architecturally, but I guess only on the front side.) I could see, though, that the blank space on the map on the other side was in fact a park. Hooray! I went back across the bridge and walked through the park to the edge of the water. Lacking GPS, I found the location by eyeball, which was about 300' from the bridge and 100' from the water feature you can see on the map. It's sort of an artificial duck pond connected to the river.

I took a few pictures, and got halfway back to the station before I realized I had forgotten to take the Stupid Grin self-portrait. This is my first solo hashing effort, so I haven't learned all the right habits yet.

This is the first documented geohashing success in Japan. However, I've corresponded with another hasher from the Tokyo page who reports a success last year, so I'm not claiming the first hash in the country. However, I get Virgin Grat for Utsunomiya, and this was my first Public Transportation geohash. It also qualified me as a Globetrotter -- I've now hashed on two continents!

I'm very encouraged by how this went. I'm used to hashing by car in the American midwest, but using the trains is good fun in a country with excellent mass transit. I'm starting to understand why/how the Germans are such active hashers.

starbird earned the Public transport geohash achievement by reaching the (36, 139) geohash on 2009-03-16 via the Ryōmō Limited Express.

starbird earned the Globetrotter achievement by visiting hashpoints on 2 continents.

Photos

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  Businesses in Japan have funny names

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  Tatara is a small town

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  SE from hash

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  SW from hash

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  NE from hash

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  The hashpoint, marked by the remains of my bento lunch

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  May be more interesting when there's a bit more water in it

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  Almost forgot

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  Not in Kansas anymore

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  Ryōmō if you want to...

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  My ticket