I thought I’d take a break this week from relaying my travel tales to bring you some useful info for anyone planning a trip to Japan themselves. For me the planning part is as much a part of the holiday as the time spent travelling itself – there’s something innately enjoyable about working out where you want to go, how to navigate your way around and where to stay.
I’m back from Shanghai with lots of posts on the way (super busy city with some amazing architecture) but just stumbled across these wonderful re-imagining’s of Seoul, Tokyo and New York‘s subway systems by Korean designer Zero per Zero which also doubles as a calendar somehow (via JeanSnow). I love this stuff. Check out what happens when you mouse over the cute logo on their site also (0 / 0). I have got to buy one of these for my apartment but not sure whether to go for the Seoul or Tokyo designs. Hope they ship to China!
Google Street View, the system that provides interactive panoramic pictures of streets in Google Maps, has recently been causing a stir in the UK with privacy groups fearing it might breach data protection laws. After assurances from Google that it would blur peoples faces and numberplates they have been allowed to proceed and there have been multiple sightings of its high-tech cars roaming the streets in and around London. Some relatives of mine spotted one of the cars while they were having a walk in Surrey (just south of London) and had a chat with the driver as well as taking some pics of the gear he was driving around with. Apparently the array has 7 cameras at the top with laser range finders…