X-Git-Url: https://codewiz.org/gitweb?p=wiki.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=blog%2F2009%2FApril;h=27b49b0994087111e94624da8cf3bca14873af57;hp=b577629cd405fba78ce7bd9824bb3f455254ba9a;hb=e29c9ea55a0fd5c11034bad1132e8f853df819aa;hpb=d661a91d25c803343ae8ac0a98d8efb24fe20583 diff --git a/blog/2009/April b/blog/2009/April index b577629..27b49b0 100644 --- a/blog/2009/April +++ b/blog/2009/April @@ -2,19 +2,37 @@ === April 30th: Departure === -TODO +==== My father's photos ==== + +Throughout our journey, my father also took [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/From_Alberto|plenty of shots]] +with his video camera. + +==== How to spend 8 hours in Paris ==== + +Our flight from Narita arrived at Charles de Gaulle at 4AM, and the connecting +flight to Florence was at 1PM. Could we spend all this time sitting in the terminal? + +No way! My camera's battery was gone, but my father took some photos of [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/From_Alberto/Paris]]. + +For the first time in my life, I had a really bad impression of Paris. Coming from Tokyo, +any place would seem very dirty, but in this case the garbage was real, abundant, +and smelled intensely of alcohol, urine and vomit. Perhaps April 30th was a special "drunk men day"? + +{{japan_2009/From_Alberto/Paris/00216.jpg|maxwidth=800}} ==== GEEK UPDATE: A productive flight ==== -On the flight back to Europe, I spent some time hacking on [[GeekiGeeki]] to add goodies such as +On the flight back to Europe, I spent some time hacking on [[GeekiGeeki]] to add little goodies such as - * a grid view for photos - * automatic generation of human-readable link tags from wiki URLs - * a common parser for argument lists such as "foo|bar=1|baz=3" - * the ability to specify css style for links and inline objects, which you can use to create thumbnails floating on the right or left + * a grid view for photos; + * automatic generation of human-readable link tags from wiki URLs; + * a common parser for argument lists such as "foo|bar=1|baz=3"; + * the ability to specify css style for links and inline objects, which I'm using to produce + floating thumbnails on the side of pages without resorting to HTML -These should make the wiki markup much lighter. As usual, these additions resulted in -simplification of the codebase rather than code bloat :-) +These new features will make my wiki markup even lighter than before. +Moreover, these additions actually resulted in further //simplification// +of the codebase rather than code bloat. Way to go! {{{ git diff --stat v3.0..HEAD geekigeeki.py @@ -22,26 +40,51 @@ geekigeeki.py | 709 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------------------- 1 files changed, 352 insertions(+), 357 deletions(-) }}} -If you see any regressions in the output, please report them to me. I'm hoping to release -4.0 soon. +If you notice any regressions in the output, please report them to me. +I'm hoping to release 4.0 soon. Tags: [[tags/stuff_that_matters]] [[tags/!bloat]] [[tags/as_simple_as_possible]] [[tags/but_no_simpler]] + +==== Last day in Tokyo ==== + +We gathered all our left energies for a //tour de force// of a bunch of touristic +locations highly recommended in our guide: + + * The [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/Edo_Museum]], along with a wonderful + temporary special exhibition of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka]]. + * The [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/Ameyoko]] markets + * The [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/Ueno_Zoo]] + * The Narita airport :-( + === April 29th: Back to Tokyo === -TODO +==== Hostel ==== + +After one last tour of the [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/town]], we left from Nikko in +with a low-cost private line (2h40, but only 1100 Yen all the way to Asakusa). + +We had just one evening and half of the next day to spend in Tokyo, so we quickly dropped +our luggage to the [[http://www.tokyo-ih.jp/en/index.html|Tokyo International Youth Hostel]], +a sort of nazi camp with a great view on the 18th floor of a high-rise building in Iidabashi. + +==== Akihabara ==== + +Because there was a strict curfew at 11PM, we had to take the metro during the rush +hour ([[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/metro|photos and videos]]) to reach +the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara|Electric Town]] ([[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/Akihabara|photos]]). === April 28th === ==== Guided tour ==== +{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/waterfalls_tour/00038.jpg|maxwidth=640|class=thumbright|The Yutaki Waterfalls}} + Pictures of our day-long [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/waterfalls_tour]] are now online. Our friendly guide, the Buddhist monk whose name I forgot, answered many of our pending questions about Japanese traditions and religion. Hiking through these sacred mountains and woods was an enjoyable experience. -{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/waterfalls_tour/00038.jpg|maxwidth=640|class=thumbright|The Yutaki Waterfalls}} - TODO: assemble a good video from all the scenes I took along the way ==== Nikko Temple Area ==== @@ -50,15 +93,15 @@ One would expect to grow bored of Shinto and Buddhist temples after seeing many all over Japan, but visiting the Nikko temple area was once again an extraordinary experience. And I could finally spot a few [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miko]]s too! -{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/world_heritage_site/00096.jpg|maxwidth=800}} +{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/world_heritage_site/00096.jpg|maxwidth=640}} === April 27th === ==== Afternoon: travel to Nikko ==== Nikko is in an adjacent valley east of Nagano on the Japanese alps. Unfortunately, no train lines -and busses connect them directly, so we had to take an expensive -- yet very fast -- Shinkansen -detour all the way down to Saitama and then up again. +and buses connect them directly, so we had to take an expensive -- yet very fast -- Shinkansen +detour all the way down to Saitama and then northbound again. Once at the station, we immediately realized it was a good deal, after all. This mountain town overflows with temples, world heritage sites and statues of Buddah