Halfway Between Fact and Knowledge
Comments: 4
Just got back from the July Tokyo bloggers’ meet-up where Robb Satterwhite (of Tokyo Food Page fame) told me that Setagaya-ku (where I live) is the only ward of all 23 in Tokyo which has no JR lines running through it (JR is the national rail service).
Now it’s no reflection on the rest of the evening to say that this was about the best thing I heard all night. I love information like this (I haven’t checked if it’s true or not but it’s not the sort of thing I want to doubt). It’s more than a simple fact because it seems like it should mean something (along the lines of no two countries with Macdonalds have ever gone to war with each other) but it’s not quite knowledge because that implies meaning or application and I’m not sure this particular datum has any. And yet surely it can’t just be trivia.
So immediately it occupies a strange place in my mind, halfway between fact and knowledge, somewhere on the edge of the apocrypha section but not ready to be shelved there yet. The exigencies of railroad engineering and town planning suddenly resonate differently, but at a frequency that may never be determined.
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Posted to Little-known Facts • 2003.07.17 (Thu) • 01:18
Comments
Posted by Kristen 2003.07.17, 09:11
I had to check. It’s true that Setagaya-ku has 2 Keio lines, an Odakyu, 5 Tokyu lines plus two expressways, but no JR.
But Nerima-ku also has no JR. There’s 1 Tobu line, 2 Seibu and 2 subways. No JR anywhere near.
There are two runners-up, as well.
Bunkyo-ku has no JR stations. But the Yamanote line passes through Hon-komagome 6-23 (only that single block!) on its way from Sugamo to Komagome.
The Yamanote similarly passes through the tip of Meguro-ku between Ebisu and Meguro; Meguro station is in Minato-ku.
The remaining 19 ku are definitely JR territory.
Posted by Kevin Tester 2003.07.17, 20:09
You may also enjoy knowing that the Jubilee line is the only line on the London Underground that intersects with all other lines.
Posted by jh 2003.07.17, 21:16
Kristen —- Thanks for doing the legwork (or mapwork) for me. You know, Nerima-ku was the first one to go through my mind as being the fly in the ointment (let’s see if I can make metaphor salad here) but I couldn’t be sure. Being a Setagaya boy from way back, this is definitely not something I want to share with Nerima (I mean really, what’s Nerima ever done for anyone?) so I’ll be petitioning their ward office to annexe a Shinjuku corridor and we can get this whole thing sorted out.
Kevin —- Damn you! Now I have to go and see if there’s a Tokyo equivalent. ;-)
Posted by Robb S. 2003.07.17, 22:02
Kristen - aww, there you go, letting reality get in the way of an entertaining factoid….
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