Willem's Planet

November 9, 2026

Monday/ Mt Hakodate 函館山 ⛰️

There were puffy clouds in the bright and brisk blue sky here in Hakodate today (a high of 4°C/ 44°F).

I lucked out: the Mount Hakodate Ropeway reopened just today, following its annual autumn maintenance closure of 20 days.

The Mt. Hakodate Ropeway first opened on November 15, 1958.

Well hello there. Passing the gondola that is on the way down.

The view from the top. Mount Hakodate (函館山, Hakodateyama) is a 334 m (1,096 ft) high, wooded mountain at the southern end of the peninsula on which much of central Hakodate is located. Those are the waters of the Tsugaru Strait between Hokkaido and Honshu. Much further out, where the horizon meets the sky, will be the north Pacific Ocean.

Hakodate and Mt Hakodate sits on a peninsula in Tsugaru Strait. So these two bays and bodies of water are both part of the Strait.

Back on the ground, and now I am walking along the neighborhood streets of Motomachi to check out some of the churches that I saw from the top of the mountain.

A few leaves are still on the trees displaying late, late autumn colors.

The Motomachi Catholic Church has a striking red roof.

This wayside shrine is called a a kiot (kee-OT, киот) in Russian Orthodox tradition. This one depicts St. Nikolai of Japan and is a devotional marker and not a gravestone.

And here is the Hakodate Orthodox Church which was constructed in 1916 in a Russian-Byzantine architecture.

Views of the harbor can be seen from the streets on the slopes of Motomachi.

This is Motomachi Park. The squid (ika) is heavily embraced as a symbol and mascot of Hakodate, famously represented by Ikaaru-Seijin (the “Squid Alien” or “man from planet squid”), a quirky half-man, half-alien squid mascot.

A panoramic view taken from Motomachi Park.

An Eurasian tree sparrow (Passer montanus), known in Japan as スズメ (suzume).

The Old Public Hall of Hakodate Ward sits just above Motomachi Park. This is the renovated building that was originally constructed in 1910.

Taking the Hakodate bus back to the hotel.

Another nod to the squid as mascot of Hakodate.

Gigantic doors (doesn’t look like they really open or close, though) on the Hakodate Beer hall and restaurant, close to my hotel.

November 8, 2026

Sunday/ train to Hakodate 🚄

I boarded the Hayabusa 23 at Tokyo station on Sunday morning, to travel north to Hakodate on Hokkaido island.

There was a slight delay due to ‘cable issues’ on most of the morning departures on the Tohoku Shinkansen line. My train was scheduled for 12.20 pm and departed at 12.38 pm.
The Hayabusa is the fastest regular bullet train service in Japan, operating on the Tohoku Shinkansen line and Hokkaido Shinkansen lines between Tokyo and Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto. Its top speed is 200 mph (320 km/h).

The route up to Hakodate is a 4h30 min train ride. The train stations for Hayabusa 23 are Tokyo, Ueno, Omiya, Sendai, Morioka, Hachinohe, Shin-Aomori, Kikonai, and Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto.

The sleekest of them all? The Hayabusa train is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Some humans on the platform were cluttering the lines in the picture and I edited them out for a clean look for the sleek machine.

Stepping on board. Mind the gap. You know your car and your seat, and this is the green car, a step up from the regular cars. The Tokyo Station building on the platform plaque that says Car No. 9 is a nice touch.

The entire rail line and the trains that run on them are an engineering marvel.

I raided the snack cart when it came by: pear flavored ice-cream, mixed nuts, apple juice, green tea. About US$10 for all of it.

This overpass is just north of Fukushima, where the nuclear power station accident in the wake of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami happened.. Is there still radiation in the area? Yes, says Google, about 3 times what it used to be, but generally considered safe.

The shinkansen sails right through most of the smaller train stations along the way.

An explosive WHOOFF for 3 or 4 seconds, means a another shinkansen is passing by.

We must have gone through two dozen short tunnels on the way up to Hakodate.

This is the view after stopping at Sendai station. The train stops for two minutes and no more than that. At the next station, Morioka, the rail line splits into two, and a few cars were disconnected from the train to go onto the other line. We stopped for only a few minutes longer.

This is near Morioka, where a view out east of Mt Himekami was visible. Mt Himekami is a neat cone-shaped peak in the Kitakami range. Look for it on the left. Behind it are higher ridges of the Kitakami range.

Another view of Morioka, and I believe this is the Nakatsu River that flows right through the center of the city and empties into the Kitakami River.

The train station at Morioka. Another Hayabusa train on the track on the other side of the platform.

The sun was setting at 3.45 pm as we approached Aomori. This is a reflection on the panel from the west side of the train. I am sitting on the right, looking out east.

Approaching Aomori and the lights are coming on.

Here’s a glimpse of Mutsu Bay by Aomori. The lights on some of the ships are on. We are about to go under Tsugaru Strait that separates Hokkaido from the main island Honshu.

A screen shot from Google Maps. My phone lost the GPS signal as we went into the undersea tunnel.

The last picture before we went into Seikan Tunnel to get to Hakodate.

Stepping of the Hayabusa train at Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto Station (新函館北斗駅) which is the northern terminus of the Hokkaido Shinkansen bullet train line, located in the city of Hokuto, Hokkaido, Japan.

Here comes the local train bound for Hakodate main station. It is one car only!

We packed the little train and I have to stand up front, but hey, look at the nice view of the track that I got.

At Hakodate main station. I had to stop at the Welcome to Hakodate picture.

A banner to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of the Hayabusa train.

November 7, 2026November 7, 2026

Saturday/ sleepless in Kabukicho 🌃

There were broken clouds this morning over the Tokyo metropolis, but the sky was clear as the sun set.

I walked around the Kabukicho district this morning, which is not far from my hotel.
I could tell from the trash on the streets that was getting cleaned up, that it must have been a wild Friday night.
Indeed, per tripadvisor.com: Kabukicho is Tokyo’s most famous entertainment and red-light district, located just north of Shinjuku Station’s East Exit.
Nicknamed the “Sleepless Town” (Nemuranai-gai), the 36-hectare area is packed with neon-lit streets, restaurants, bars, and clubs that run around the clock.

The Tokyo batting cage nearby is one of the city’s top batting centers. Machines pitch the baseballs, and it is open into the wee hours of the morning as well.

I took the picture of Kabukicho Tower at dusk from my hotel room window (using panorama mode on my phone).

November 6, 2026November 7, 2026

Friday/ more trains 🚆

Happy Friday.
It was a sunny summery day here in Tokyo (74°F/ 23 °C).
I made one more run to the Museum of Philately to go and scour the stock albums of the stamp dealers there for stamps I still miss in my current Japan collection. (I found a few.)

Looking down on the north end of Shinjuku station from the 22nd floor of my hotel.

I just stepped of the train on the Seibu Shinjuku line at Takanobaba station. The train drivers are exchanging a few words.

A recruitment poster outside convenience store Family Mart inside Mejiro station, ostensibly of ‘Lady Gaga’ as an employee (her name is on the name tag). The white letters say ‘Famina de hataraku? -Work at Family Mart?). Famima is the Japanese nickname for Family Mart.

Just a little turn-around lot for a city bus. The streets are narrow, and I guess in this case the bus route is not a loop.

Be prepared for a disaster. Not only are there a fire extinguisher and emergency phones in the train car— there is also a little infographic that shows where they are.

Back at Seibu-Shinjuku station by my hotel, the terminus for the Seibu-Shinjuku line.

My early evening outing was not far — I wanted to make it back by 5.30 to avoid the rush hour. I took the Marounochi line out and this green Shinjuku line back. Both are operated by Tokyo Metro. Tokyo Metro operates 9 distinct subway lines covering 180 stations across central Tokyo and the Greater Tokyo Area. The other subway operator is Toei Subway with 106 stations across 4 lines.
(There are other surface, commuter, and national rail lines like JR East and private railways across the wider Tokyo metropolis, bringing the total number of train stations to some 880 train stations.)

It’s a long walk through the Shinjuku station to the hotel. My super power navigation weapon is to follow the signs to the Seibu-Shinjuku station. I know the exit there is right by my hotel.)

Friday night street scene outside Shinjuku station.

November 5, 2026

Thursday/ Ginza district 🛍️

It was still raining a little bit on Thursday morning, but light enough for me to walk around Ginza district.

Pictures:
Used cameras in a store inside Shinjuku station (the ‘Junk’ designation simply means ‘Final Sale’ or ‘As-Is’; the item should still work fine!);
The Chuo Line at Shinjuku station (gets over to Tokyo Station quicker than the Yamanote loop line);
Then from Tokyo Station the Marounochi line with its iconic red trains go to Ginza station;
Artwork and the fancy inside of Ginza station;
The T-rex wire mobile is from an at exhibition on the top floor of Matsuya Ginza department store;
The new Nissan Leaf Electric Vehicle in a splashy turquoise color;
Ginza station on the way back.

November 4, 2026November 4, 2026

Thursday morning in Japan/ the blue tsunami 🌊

So there it is, the polls did not lie.
All the money in the world, dumped into races in Texas to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, the gerrymandering of the districts in Texas, Florida, California and North Carlina, all the vile personal attacks against Talarico in Texas and El-Sayed in Michigan, could not help the Republicans.

Two Senate races still have to be called, plus a lot of House races, but the Democrats will be firmly in control of Congress.

Trump pledged to work with the Democrats. Ri-ight.

November 4, 2026November 4, 2026

Wednesday/ rain in Sunshine City ☔

Sunshine City is a building complex located in East Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo, Japan.

I set out to Ikebukuro station on Wednesday morning to look for a bookstore called K-books.
There were several unforeseen obstacles in my mission: a persistent rain; it turned out there were about a dozen K-books stores in the area, each tucked into a hole-in-the-all space; and when I finally found the right one, a sign outside said it was closed until Friday for renovations. Oh no!

The Yamanote line, on the way to Ikebukuro station.

An arch with the sun, in the Sunshine City complex of buildings.

A K-pop store. K-pop stands for Korean pop culture, meaning boy bands, girl bands, manhwa (Korean mange) and associated merchandise such as figurines.

Here is the K-books store that I tracked down to no avail. The basement section with books is closed for renovation until Friday.

Nitori is a Japanese furniture and home accessories retail company headquartered in Sapporo. It is sometimes referred to as ‘Japan’s IKEA’. (Even though Japan has IKEA stores as well).

Here’s a roadrunner, like the one in the Looney Tunes cartoons.

I made a run to Tokyo Station early evening to check out how to get to the shinkansen (bullet train) gates. I will travel towards Sapporo on the Shinkansen on Sunday with a stayover in Hakodate.

I got lost in Shinjuku station on the way back and ended up in a section called Shinjuku Tower with polished pillars, and stopped for a moment to take a picture.

The top of Tokyu Kabukicho Tower from my hotel room window.

November 3, 2026November 3, 2026

Tuesday/ on the train 🚆

I had the sense when I went out at 10 am this morning, that there were more people around on the stations and on the train than there normally would be.
And then there were fewer as the rush hour approached at 5.30 pm (the peak is normally 6.00 pm to 7.00 pm).

All was explained when the hotel staff told me that today was a national holiday in Japan: Culture Day.
Culture Day (Bunka no Hi) is a national public holiday in Japan held annually on Nov. 3. It promotes the arts, cultural awareness, academic endeavors, and a love for peace and freedom. – from Wikipdia

It is Election Day in the United States, of course. It will already be 8 am on Wednesday morning here when the first results will start to come in.

The first polls close at 6 p.m. ET in the eastern parts of Indiana and Kentucky. Then at 7 p.m., polls close in Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia, the rest of Indiana, Kentucky and most of Florida. Then North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia follow at 7:30 p.m- as reported by CBS news.

The **Shinjuku-Seibo station** opened in 1952 and is the terminus on the Seibu Shinjuku Line. Its entrance is right by my hotel.

This is the train station named **Takadanobaba**, on the green Yamanote Line operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East).

I love this graphic from a screen inside the train car that shows the estimated times to the upcoming stations. The **Yamanote Line** is a loop line and is one of Tokyo’s busiest and most important lines, connecting most of Tokyo’s major railway stations and commercial and urban centers.
The Yamanote Line opened on 1 March 1885: 141 years ago.

**Mejiro** station on the Yamanote Line has only this one entrance and exit.

The **Museum of Philately** is close by Mejiro station, and there are a handful of displays and a library with stamp catalogues on the second floor. There are a few stamp dealers with shelves full of albums and stock books, and I bought several sheets of Japanese frame stamps to add to my collection. (Frame stamp sheets: special, limited-edition sheets of customizable or themed postage stamps issued by Japan Post. I will post pictures of a few examples).

November 2, 2026November 2, 2026

Monday/ to Shinjuku City 🏙️

I checked out of my hotel in Asakusa on Monday morning.
There was a drizzle outside, and a taxi ride was in order for the transfer to my hotel in Shinjuku.
Shinjuku City is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, and functions as a major commercial, administrative, and entertainment hub.

Look for Godzilla at the left, on top of the IMAX theater in the last picture (the view from my hotel room on the 22nd floor). Shinjuku train station is towards the right side of the picture. Its inside is going to test my indoor navigation skills again!

November 1, 2026November 1, 2026

Sunday/ at the stamp exhibition 📮

Sunday was the last day of the JAPEX 2026 stamp exhibition.
I made a few more purchases, and mailed postcards with new stamps issued specially for the exhibition, and with a dedicated cancellation mark, to myself in Seattle.

They were marked ‘AIRMAIL’ (of course), and will be at my house long before I return there. (The post office is holding my mail until I get back).

A mailbox outside my hotel here in Asakusa (early in the morning). Japan Post mailboxes are usually plain red, but this one has been dressed up a little, with a panda bear on top that takes 100 yen coins. I forgot to look what the money is for.

My standard Japanese ‘Sakura’ stamp catalog lists one stamp only for the Earthquake Emergency Issue of 1926, but there are specialized catalogs that detail the printing locations, plate flaws, color variations and more.

Beautiful artwork on peace-themed postcards issued in July 1919, with stamps from around that time, as well.
(Japan fought in World War I from 1914 to 1918 as a member of the Allied Powers, fulfilling the Anglo-Japanese Alliance to help secure sea lanes and seize German territories in East Asia and the Pacific.)

A cover (envelope) sent from Tientsin (now officially spelled Tianjin) in northern China in 1899, to New Haven in the USA.
This was in the very early days of sending mail, and the I.J.P.O. stands for Imperial Japanese Post Office.
During the late Qing dynasty, Western powers and Japan established treaty ports in China—including Tientsin (Tianjin). Because the Chinese imperial postal system was not yet fully integrated into the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and was deemed unreliable for overseas transit by foreign merchants, major world powers set up their own civilian post offices right on Chinese soil.
By the way: is that not a gorgeous cursive handwriting from the sender? What a tragedy that we no longer write like that.

Covers (envelopes) from 1901.
Given that traditional Japanese writing go top-to-bottom (in columns that progress from right-to-left), that is the way you would write addressees and addresses on envelopes as well .. very boldly!

October 31, 2026October 31, 2026

Saturday/ Happy Harroween* 🎃

*The way the Japanese pronounce it. Japanese doesn’t have separate L and R sounds. It has one sound, the ら row (ra, ri, ru, re, ro), which is a quick tap of the tongue against the ridge behind the upper teeth. It’s a bit like the “dd” in “ladder” as pronounced in American English. To English ears it can sound like an R, an L, or a D depending on the word and speaker. The loanword version for ‘Halloween’ is ハロウィン (Harowin).
-explanation by Claude AI

I paid my dues at the JAPEX 2026 stamp exhibition on Saturday, and left after two hours. (The amount of money I spend buying stamps is directly proportional to the time I spend there).

From there I went to an obscure stamp shop on the 4th floor of a nondescript building here in Asakusa called Yuzudo stamp.
The store manager helped me find some Japanese stamps that I had been looking for, for a long time— an 1871 dragon stamp, a few 1872 cherry blossom stamps, and an 1876 old koban stamp.
It was just a few hundred dollars; the weak yen helps a lot, and I would pay 1.5x or 2x that if I had to buy them online. (Or that is what I told myself.) Anyway, I came away very happy with my purchases.

Then it was back to the hotel to chase away the jet lag with a little Starbucks pour-over origami coffee.

Early evening I ran out to the Yodobashi Camera department store in Akihabara to take advantage of the very last day that foreigners can get the 10% local consumption tax right in the store. Starting tomorrow on Nov. 1, the 10% tax has to be paid and an onerous process of claiming it back at one’s departure airport out of Japan kicks in. Aw.

Those watches caught my eye (based on the famous One Piece, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda). The crocodilian dinosaur is a Kaprosuchus. It lived 100 million years ago and galloped on land to catch small dinosaurs with its ferocious teeth.

The De Lorean from the Back To The Future movies is a special edition, highly detailed little model offered by toymaker Takara Tomy.

October 30, 2026October 30, 2026

Friday/ Asakusa (浅草) ⛩️

My hotel is in Asakusa.
Asakusa is the center of Tokyo‘s shitamachi (literally “low city”), and a district where an atmosphere of the Tokyo of long, long ago survives. Asakusa’s main attraction is Sensoji, a very popular Buddhist temple, built in the 7th century.

I took the sunset picture from across the Sumida river, looking towards Asakusa. Sunset is at 4.48 pm Japan Standard Time.

The communications tower is Tokyo Sky Tree (it opened in 2012), a broadcasting and observation tower, located in the neighboring Sumida district, across the Sumida river from Asakusa.

October 29, 2026October 29, 2026

Thursday night/ arrival in Tokyo 🛬

My flight went without incident.
We boarded in Seattle by simply looking into the camera at the gangway door. You only need your face. No boarding pass, no passport.
On board, I was in the middle section in the economy seats, but with open seats next to me—always nice.
There was a little turbulence as we descended towards Haneda airport; the kind that makes you hold onto your beverage on the tray table so that it doesn’t spill.

From Haneda airport I took the Keikyū Airport Line train to Asakusa station, and walked 15 minutes to the hotel with the help of Google Maps. (Where are my AI glasses that can tell me turn left here, or go straight? I had to stop every few mins to check the map. I would have loved to hail a taxi with the GO Taxi app they use here but I find it complicated to use, and the language barrier does not help.)

Our flight duration was 10 hrs 30 ins from Seattle to Tokyo, and here we are about halfway.

The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner (twin-jet) (B789) that brought us to Japan, at the gate at Haneda airport.

And here is the bed that I am about to dive into, to see if I can get a few hours’ sleep.
It’s 11 pm local time now. I landed at Haneda airport at 3 am Seattle time and I might have taken a 30 min nap on the plane.

The traditional woven floor mats in my hotel room are called tatami. They feature a core made of compressed rice straw (tatami-doko) and a soft outer cover woven from soft rush grass. Shoes are not allowed in the hotel, and you leave them at the entrance just as you would if you visited someone at their home here in Japan. The hotel has lockers at the entrance of the hotel for the guests’ shoes.

Watch out! Here comes Godzilla (TV in my hotel room.)

October 28, 2026October 28, 2026

Wednesday/ at the airport ✈️

I am at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, awaiting the departure of my flight to Tokyo’s Haneda airport on All Nippon Airlines.

The expansion of C Concourse here at Sea-Tac airport is complete, and I went up to the viewing deck to check out the action out on the runway.

Looking out towards the gates at Concourse D from the mezzanine at Concourse C.

The extension to Concourse C has several new eateries and stores.

Looking down from the new mezzanine level at Concourse C. These large wooden steps serve as a seating area.

The new view deck at Concourse C is another flight of stairs up from the mezzanine level. (There are elevators to it as well). The triangular space is not large, but offers views through large glass panes with an inch or two space to the outside air between them. To the south one can see the runway and gates at Concourse A, and looking north, one can see the departing aircraft as well.
Look for a Lufthansa bird that had just departed, to Frankfurt no doubt, in the distance just to the left of the lamp post in the middle of the picture.

October 27, 2026October 27, 2026

Tuesday/ one week to go 🗳️

If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era, I think. He’ll still be president for two more years. But the minute the election, the votes, are counted — might take a while because of Alaska and California and states like that — the 2028 election campaign begins, and if Trump has a bad night, as polls show, then he’s a super-lame duck, right? You might draw an analogy to George W. Bush after 2006.

– Political analyst Nate Silver talking to New York Times columnist Ezra Klein

One week to go until Election Day.
Voting is underway, and 35 million Americans have already voted. (The total number of votes cast in the 2022 midterms was 122 million.)

This map shows that the early voting numbers are already **well ahead of the total 2022 tally in most states.** Does that portend well for the Democrats? Probably .. but Democrats are known for voting early, and there will be a surge of last day voters, as there always is.
[Infographic by the Election Labs project of the University of Florida]

The House is probably going to the Democrats.
The Senate is also a possibility, and Democrats need a net gain of 4. Doable, but we won’t know until next week.
[Infographic by Al Jazeera News]

October 26, 2026October 26, 2026

Monday/ here comes Anthropic 🦾

For years, Dario Amodei, a founder of the start-up Anthropic, has been painted as the pre-eminent doomsayer of artificial intelligence, often making sweeping statements about how the technology could wreak havoc on the world.

On Monday, as Dr. Amodei presented his company’s paperwork for what could be the biggest ever initial public offering on Wall Street, he painted a more nuanced picture: Even with its many risks, A.I. has the potential to bring about untold benefits to humanity.
– Mike Isaac reporting for the New York Times

Anthropic has officially filed an S-1 registration statement with the SEC for an upcoming initial public offering, possibly as early as this November. The juggernaut of an IPO has estimated valuations ranging from $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion.

The way the Anthropic IPO goes will have widespread implications.
‘It makes the Claude chatbot, is a tent pole of the A.I. industry. It sits atop a pyramid of business partners and suppliers, making it a barometer of the broader economy’ writes Erin Griffith and Lauren Hirsch in another report for the NYT.

‘If Anthropic disappoints in its public debut, that could hurt investor confidence and cascade into a wider market sell-off, casting doubts on how much longer the A.I. boom can go. A successful offering could lift the market and pave the way for more A.I. companies to go public.’