Kanazawa "At Home at Ryokan Service"
New Q&A: Can I make a simulation of my trip?
November 19th, 2009
The answer is: almost.
It would be very nice to navigate as if we are already in the places that we want to visit and this is possible only for some cities in Japan.
I’m talking about “Google Maps” and in particular of the “Street View” function.
This free service allows us to see at 360 degrees what we would see if we are at the center of a road we have chosen. We walk the path we have chosen seeing how the landscape around us change.
This lets you immediately to see for example the paths from the train station to the hotel, or to see where you can find shops of different kinds.
This enables us to save time and effort and reduce the frustration usually present when we can not find a place to visit.
To use it is very simple. I’ll do an example with Tokyo.
After opening Google Maps, type in the search box the name of the neighborhood or the shop followed by the word “Tokyo” and the word “Japan”
For example, wanting to reach the Ueno district in Tokyo simply write: ueno tokyo japan
obtaining:
Zoom the map with your mouse wheel and then drag with the mouse the little orange man on the left of the map until the little man is above the areas of the map of your interest. In doing so, all the roads where you can use the “Street View” service are outlined in blue. Place the green figure (located under the little orange man) on the chosen road:
Now you can use the left mouse button to rotate the view and select the arrows superimposed on the road to move according the road itself.
This is a funny animation made by Google that illustrates how photos are taken:
