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The building behind me to my right
is Yuda (Onsen) Station
A very typical branch line station in a small town in Japan
This one is for the local hot spring
Er, in other words we have hot water
pumped up out of the ground
into which people have baths
its a spa.
Its also the place from which, er
local high school students commute to school
And so what makes it typical?
I'll go through some of the things
There's a taxi rank
In these times of depression
Japan's been in a long economic depression really
for the past 20 years about
sine I came.
There's a row of taxis outside the station
but not many people are hiring them
Er, the cars are a little different
In America, you'll find that most
taxi drivers of a different ethnicity
to their customers
But in Japan
since their are few ethnic minorities
all the Japanese taxi drivers
are, er, Japanese.
Maybe you can see some standing there
It's kind of bright
so I can't see too well
All the cars are made by Toyota
And generally they're the, er...
the Crown make of car.
which is quite a luxury car in someways
And er, they have mirrors
attached to front wing as oppose to the door
There's a map
next to the train station
The reason why there's a map
is because er, since
Japanese roads lack street names
If there wasn't a map
it'd be very very difficult
To find out where you want to go
One of the things that makes Yuda Onsen Station
a little different,
is the existance of the large
er statue, white statue of a fox
of the white fox.
No, there are no white foxes in Japan
as far as I am aware
It's a legendary fox.
which is said to have found
The source of the hot spring
And its a very common legend
throughout Japan
that animals find hot springs.
I think the idea is that
Hot springs are
considered to be very natura
so if they were found by humans,
digging in the ground
That would reduce their sense of naturalness
So erm, there are many legends of
Generally of er, one type of animal or another
finding the hot springs
before humans
and humans observing
animals having a good time in the hot water
which flows naturally ouf the ground
before realisign that
we humans too will enjoy it
So as according to the legend,
that one day a monk
or, an otherwise auspiscious person
saw a white fox
bathing in a pool of water
And he tried it,
and he enjoyed it.
There's not a lot in front of the station
There's a erm,
a squewer barbeque shop (restaurant)
a "kushiyaki shop"
Which is behind me to my left.
which sells erm,
A variety of er,
meats and vegetables
squewered and then grilled,
on a sort of indoor barbeque
It's very tasty actually,
It doesn't look like much from the outside but
Kushizou, that's the name of the restaurant
is well recommended.
in front of Yuda Spa (Onsent) station.
Yuda Onsen Station.
And there is the ubiquitous
bicycle car parkk
Er, the Japanese aren't into
bicycles nearly as much as er
Chinese people are.
But um, there are always a lot of bicycles
outside Japanese stations.
less because of the popularity
of this mode of transport
but more because
the Japanese have a tendency
To, er, dump their bicycles.
There are an awful lot of bicycles in the bicycle park
considering the size of the station.
And what's special about them is,
that almost all of them are "shoppers."
wich low crossbars.
to facilitate easy
getting on an getting off
A popular Japanese make is erm,
Bridgestone
And they're very cheap
They're above well,
Bridgestone are not so cheap
but you can get a bicycle like this
new for less than 200 dollars
And I don't think,
that people feel so identified
with their bicycle
a bicycle is a bicycle is a bicyle.
but rather than being "my bicycle"
perhaps that's one of the reasons
why they have a tendency to throw them away
And I think that,
I was just talking to the guy who er...
runs the bicycle carpark
Who you can see over there in the yellow yat.
And he recons
That a considerable p'p'p'proportion
of them are already abandoned
And you can see some of them have very rusty chains
and, like this one here.
Every now and again, every few months.
They'll get rid of all the, the bicycles.
that no one is coming to ride.
which will mean that
a considerable proportion of them will be thrown away
becuase bicycles are cheap
because peope er, move
they graduate from university
the bicyles get left behind.
And the only, er, fast bike
in the bicycle park is er mine
And er, here's a train
full of people arriving at
Yuda onsen station
The majority seem to be
School children and university students
or people coming to work in the city
many of them will have left their bicycle here
overnight, since they are commuters.