[LINK] Fwd: vip-l: Tagging Tokyo's streets with no name

[Adam Todd]

At 10:20 PM 10/05/2007, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>Now *that's* an infrastructure project!
>
>>Tagging Tokyo's streets with no name
>>If you have ever enjoyed frustration-free, satnav assisted drives or the

Nope, most of the time the auto route is wrong :)

Except when I use Oziexplorer and load my own maps and routes :)

>>hissing serenade that preceded an important fax,

Nope,Ii leave the speak off :)

>>then you can thank the city with no street names - Tokyo.

I have to admit when I was there some years ago with my sweet wife, 
we didn't notice this.

>>A capital city without road names is a huge handicap. Collectively, the
>>Japanese (especially trainee post workers) and bewildered visitors have
>>spent decades lost in Tokyo's labyrinthine arteries - most, literally,
>>without a name.
>>
>>But rather than just name the streets and number the buildings, the locals
>>had a uniquely Japanese answer to the problem: improve an existing
>>technology, in this case the fax, to send maps and directions to visitors.

OK, so someone says.  But really, we had no trouble getting around 
Tokyo and we only had the "Tourist" map that has land marks on 
it!  We had no trouble finding the places we had to go to, although 
most were rather well known and very visible, but still, even when we 
had to "meet" at some small restaurant tucked way in a small door way 
with a stair case leading under a building, we still found them 
without any problem.

I rather found Tokyo easier to get around than Sydney City!

>>Alas, Tokyo's complex subway still remains a challenge even to residents,
>>something your correspondent pondered while making his uncertain way to a
>>laboratory in western Tokyo.

Again, we caught a number of trains and had no trouble finding the 
right stations, and trains and that's without reading any Japanese!

I really found it quite an easy city to navigate with minimal instruction.

But then I found the same thing in France most of the time (except 
when we got lost and went around in circles at Grasse for 40 minutes 
one night.)

Even when I asked a Policeman for instrucitons and he just waved his 
arms around in Typical French Fashion saying lots of french words I 
didn't understand, 20 minutes later I was at the destination and only 
circled once, which is more than i can say for Sydney where I might 
circle a dozen times and I grew up here!


I think it's all perception.  I've had nearly as much hassle getting 
around New York as I have in Sydney.  I'd say Melbourne and Canberra 
were naturals to me as well.