domingo, 2 de diciembre de 2012

Eki no hanko. 1.Shin-Osaka

From today I am going to scan in my blog "Japon en bocetos", my collection of Japanese train station stamps. In a country where drawing is so popular, and specially drawing stamps, since Hiroshige and the mythical Hokusai, who produced their work carved in wood blocs, train companies cannot avoid that stamps are a big deal in Japan, japanese adults and kids are crazy about that, and each station has its particular stamp, in japanese Eki no hanko, which means Eki (station) and hanko (stamp), train stamps. If you visit Japan, please dont forget to ask to the train station officer 'sumimasen, Eki no hanko doko desuka', which means "excuse me sir, where is the train station stamp?, sometimes he will have the stamp in the ticket office, but in other stations will be in a stand, for everybody used, those stamps are in a way a kind of sketching thing, because you have to find with your own effort the place where they are hidden, thats the fun of it. There are thousand of train stations in Japan, and of course thousands of stamps that you can get in the places that you visit, bringing a lovely memory of every place that you visited. Each city has got their particular stamps, differing in colors and shapes from other cities or prefectures stamps, Osaka stamps are red and circular, and Tokyo stamps are squared and black. The variations It also depends of the train company, for example sotetsu company will have different stamps from JR lines, that means that the same station could have different stamps adding more fun to the whole thing. This Stamp represents is Shin-osaka, all the stations with the prefix shin, It is the abbreviation for Shinkansen, the bullet train. This was the first station I stopped in Japan, you have to take it if you want to go really fast from the Kansai airport to Osaka city center.

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