Story of Klappacka
Klappacka is this longish wooden construction which can be folded.
English pronouncation is "cluppukkah", nearest Japanese pronouncation is "クラパカ" = "k(u)rapaka"
Idea
I like trains and want to be their ratio in the journey's trop to be as high as possible. When going through Balticum, on weekdays there are no trains between the borders (not yet?).
As I'm not used to long distance buses I decided to rather take a bike with me than to go into such a bus. But there are other parts of my journey where I definitely cann't take my bicycle so I looked for a way of storing my travel luggage for use with _and_ without bicycle.
As on bike panniers ("Packtaschen") are unbeatable and without bike I do like trolleys I thought about crossing this.
Final result is a wooden construction which can be taken on my bike as additional luggage and which can be unfolded to hold my panniers.
Construction
{TODO: ... Explanation, design data ...}
Here you can finde the plans (in German) for download:
Klappacka looks like this:
28-2-2019 Start
On February 28th, accompagnied by sunny weather the journey start. Klappacka is mounted on the bike.
First station is Hamburg Hbf (no photo).
01-3-2019 Germany - Poland - [Lithuania?]
In Hostel "Heart of Gold" in Berlin center Klappacka is waiting for next trip. It stayed outside over night in order to save time putting it on and off.
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It turned out that fortunately Klappacka has no problems to be fixed on a 90° turned bike, so in train there was also 0 time needed putting it on and off.
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Klappacka in Warszawa Central. The rolling ramp ist very convenient.
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Sometimes Klappacka want's to see some panorama. So it's owner lugged it up the stairs with bike and luggage here in Suwalki (left photograph). Of course the lower variant (right photograph) would have been more convenient, but owner does everything for Klappacka (or ... maybe for own thoughtlessness or maybe because he was a bit in hurry.)
02-3-2019 - Lithuania - Latvia
The way in Lithuania was pretty normal - Klappacka was mounted on bike.
This double train (Kaunas-Vilinus) was very crowded, but it had some hanging facilities for 7 bikes in the door Klappacka entered.
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This old train (Vilnius - Daugavpils) has big narrow steps, but as soon as you ascended, Klappacka can feel the serenity in all aspects (.. e. g. train speed) - there is no other bike and train is not too crowed so it's no problem to let it stand on the floor.
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Klappacka bike. Right-behind is Daugavpils University, Left-front (outside picture) is Unity House.
Then in hostel in Daugavpils (Thanks tourist information for pointing the right out) the big transformation took place - Klapacka has now it's full size and looks like this:
Klappacka unfolded. In the train it could be put on the [Ablage]:
03-3-2019/04-3-2019 - Latvia (Riga) - Russia (Moscow)
Originally Klapacka wanted to stay in Yaroslawskaya station, but the luggage department there had some strange mathematical views (counting Klapacka with 2 panniers as 3 pieces of luggage, along with 3 other pieces resulting in 6*230₽ = 2300 ₽ (RUB). After refuse to store Kapacka under these numerical condition, bill reduced to 3*230₽ = 920 ₽ ... creative calculation ...) for remaining luggage so Kapacka decided to come with owner on Moscow tour, even in the actual weather condinion.. There it saw the Kreml:
05-3-2019/12-3-2019 - Russia (Moscow - Vladivostok)
In the Russian long-distance sleeper train from Москва Ярославская = Moskow Yaroslavskaya to Владивосток = Vladivostok the space for luggage is typically very crowded. On following image you see Klappacka did fit well under the seat.
The Владивосток = Vladivostok station is old, but newly renovated, e. g. the staircase.
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12-3-2019/13-3-2019 - Russia / South Korea (Vladivostok - Andong)
On the way to the ferry in Владивосток = Vladivostok:
On the ship the waves were high and wind was strong but Klappacka, made of wood and steal, had no problems with that.
동해 = Donghae station (first image: front) sadly has no panorama-view bridge, says Klappacka. Fortunately, says owner, it has a level crossing (second image). This level crossing is operated manually (so you don't have access to platforms at all when there's no passenger train).
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In the medium-distance train in South Korea there's no space for Klappacka with bicycle but alone it fits very well. It is notable that the air conditioning is pretty silent so you actually hear the car rolling over the tracks. [Update: depends on the actual setting. Some cars have louder air conditioning, keeping lower temperature.]
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14-3-2019/15-3-2019 - South Korea / Japan
In South Korea the last train to 부산 = 釜山 = Busan was some high speed train (300 km/h).
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부산 = 釜山 = Busan train station is very big.
Klappacka also fits on ferry boths, see here the ferry from 부산=釜山=Busan to 博多=Hakata (福岡=Fukuoka):
This is what you see when stepping from Hakata International Passenger Terminal to 福岡市 (the city of Fukuoka).
Klappacka visits Fab Lab Oita (大分市 = city of Ooita) on open Friday Evening:
16-3-2019 - Japan (Beppu)
Next day Klappacka remains in town while owner goes to a 810 m mountain in 別府=Beppu (while GPS device shows 830 m ...)
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17-3-2019 - Japan (Beppu - Onomichi)
When leaving 別府市 = city of Beppu on Sunday, Klappacka is given a brass band pop concert at the station.
Limited Express' Sonic trains seats make it easy to sleep in them.
Sanyo train line is a long route which is split up in different trains. So Klappacka did see different generations of those local trains. The newer train even has won some design award.
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Here you can see Klappacka near the next station, 玖波駅=Kuba inside a new train. Kuba names a quarter of 大竹市 = city of Otake.
Klappacka was told it was a must-do for foreign and not-foreign people to visit 大鳥居=Ootorii, which is part of 厳島神社 = Itsukushima Shrine (大鳥居 is the reverent way of saying 鳥居 = Torii). So it did. It was a bit late for all the museums, souvenir shops etc. on Miyajima (= 宮島 = Isle of Miya = 厳島=Itsukushima ?) but not too late for the decently illuminated part of Buddhist shrine which was, for reasons of practically coping with some religious rules in former times, build up in directly the sea, sometimes accessible via boat in case of high tide and by foot in case of low tide.
18-3-2019/19-3-2019 Bicycle path
On 18th of March owner did lock Klappacka away before cycling the famous bicycle path over the bridges. (There was no rental bicycles equipped in a way they could carry Klappacka)
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In Japan Monorack is popular for transporting agricultural stuff. Even in the forest such Monoracks are installed to higher fields.
(More Information follows)
20-3-2019/22-3-2019 Kyoto
Klappacka was rather inactive while owner had to visit tourist attractions not further noteworthy here.
23-3-2019 Visit to Pirates of Japan
On saturday Klappacka visited Pirates of Japan in Tokyo. We exchanged about party status, copyright issues and lots of other things.
Photo: Left-to-right: Jonas Bechtel, Suzawa Hideto , ?, Yasushi Takeshima with own work
24-3-2019/31-3-2019 Tokyo [Spare]
Klappacka was rather inactive while owner had to visit tourist attractions not further noteworthy here.
Infobox: Change between "Keisei Main" and "JR Sobu" lines.
If you are in Tokyo and want to change from JR Sobu line to Keisei Main Line, e.g. to get to Sakura and visit the National Museum on Japanese History, you may chose severals possibilities.
Tsudanuma (I)
津田沼 = Tsudanuma is a change point to some JR company lines as well as a change and starting point of Keisei company lines: Keisei Main Line (stop) and Shin-Kei-sei line (= "New Keisei Line") (start/end). Shin-Kei-sei line is not to be mixed up with Shin-Kan-Sen lines as there's some considerable difference in speed.
This possibility (I) means that you walk from Tsudanuma station (Sobu line) to Keisei-Tsudanuma station (Keisei Main Line, Shin-Keisei Line). This will take several minutes and you have to find the way (Depending of your side the Sobu line you must cross their tracks. Do this on the staired bridge close to the station. You cann't take the first big bridge as there's no footway). The second bridge is a train-only crossing. After second bridge, there's a [Unterführung] which may have a footway.
Photo: This bicycle parking house is where you end up when you walk to the wrong bridge.
Tsudanuma (II)
Or you can leave (JR) Tsudanuma station and enter the Shin-Keisei Line in Shin-Keisei station (not too long to walk), take the train for one station to Keisei-Tsudanuma and take the Keisei Main line train there. When Klappacka made this, for some reason the fare was ~ 250 Yen more than Hyperdia did propose.
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Photos: Find this underground bicycle parking space when you choose this variant.
Photo: In Japan the crossing trains' direction is indicate at level crossings. The arrow rightward and leftware are fully independent, which means that even two crossing trains will be signalled just-in-time for their own.
Funabashi (III)
Nothing easier than that. You leave (JR) Funabashi station and enter Keisei-Funabashi station or vice-versa. People who don't choose this possibility probably don't know about this.
Nishi-Funabashi (IV)
Similar to Funabashi (III) but some minute more walking. You leave (JR) Nishi-Funabashi station and walk down the street (200 m) to Keisei-Nishifuna station or vice-versa. This also allows you to take the metro directly from Keisei Main Line.
Klappacka visited the bicycle parking station next to Keisei-Tsudanuma station. There's another bicycle parking station at Tsudanuma station, as well as there lot of those stations in Japan. (Most bicycle parking is on ground level, though)
31-03-2019 Fab Lab Tsukuba (or the try to visit it)
Photo: a same-level bicycle parking in Tsukuba
On sunday Fab Lab Tsubaku usually opens, so Klappacka went there. It is next to the Tsubaku University campus. Unfortunately Klappacka was somewhat late and didn't find anybody. The sign on the door indicates the opening hours but the sign is pasted over by a tape which say's "closed".
Photo: Klappacka and it's try to enter FPGACafe Tsukuba = Fablab Tsukuba.
On the way back Klappacka nearly was destroyed by an car. It seems that in japan straight walking people don't have precedence over turning cars?
01-04-2019 Klappacka lost
Unfortunately this is not an april fool - Klappacka was lost at 代々木上原 (Yoyogi-Uehara) station, the ending station of 東京メトロ - 千代田線 (Tōkyō Metro - Chiyoda Line). When owner noticed, he tried to re-enter the train which he just left when it came back from yard. But Klappacka wasn't there. So owner went to station lost&found office where they already had stored the just found Klappacka.
(Photo: here's the line timetable departing from 大手町 (Ōtemachi) in direction of 代々木上原 - you cannot say "the train I just got off" because in the time you reach the lost&found office there arrive ~two more trains.)
This event finished the series of bad fortune (FPGACafe closed, nearly destroyed, lost in train). Now everything is fine!
01-04-2019 Fablab Setagaya
Fablab Setagaya is located at Ikejiri Institute of Design (short IID, in japanese 世田谷ものづくり学校) in quarter Setagaya. It is located in one small room directly in IID building so the students can easily make their things. But public can also come.
Before the building the beginning cherry blossom is at it's best, and inside Klappacka was photographed with Kazumasa Kanei (鐘居和政) and owner Jonas.
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(01-04+) 03-04-2019 Museum of Agriculture
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Oh! See! It's an urban garden in Tokyo!
Oh! No! It's an experimental vegetable field of University of Agriculture in Tokyo.
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Next to the experimental field there's the Museum of Food and Agriculture. There they have living hens (1st picture), artificial hens (2nd) and conserved hens (3rd picture).
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The museum covers different aspects of coqs & hens, sake production (1st picture) and products and drinking culture (2nd) including featured companies (here sake = alcoholic drink made from rice, here sake != salmon), an actual café, an old shed (3rd picture; not open for playing children) and a tropical plant greenhouse (4th picture).
Unfortunately it's all in Japanese language except the hearty RIP message for an conserved cloned mouse which lived for long time. (Are there other cloned mouses which survived for shorter periods? I hope also for them that their soul has an nice place in infinity!)
03-04-2019 FabCafe Tokyo
FabCafe Tokyo is the first FabCafe at all. There's lot of life, composed of shared space utilization, hosted events, etc.. Daiki Kanaoka showed all the facilities and we had some discurse on Fablab situation in Germany/Dresden. Here I also got the tip to go to Hida, a real "rural" place.
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Photos: 1st - Ground floor (1F) of FabCafe Tokyo. Here's the actual Café which today hosts some event about VR. 2nd - They have samples of things you can make here instantly without knowledge/planning. 3rd - productive mood in first floor (2F). Those who have electronic design files can make them here and in second floor and in bio laboratory. 4th - you also can build "safecast" here, this is a sensor network for measuring nuclear radiation aiming that there shell be no outage of sensors+data any more. 5th - Daiki Kanaoka, Klappacka and Jonas.
03-04-2019 Loft&Fab
Not so clear for an non-japanese website visitor, it turned out that AndFab (Loft&Fab) is an small production site integrated in the highest floor in some shops of the popular Loft chain where you can get crafts and gifts.
05-04-2019 Play&Crafts Nagano
By good fortune in Nagano Play&Crafts was discovered when lingering around. Thats a nice, multi-floored space where children can play&make, as well as the grown-ups can build things with wood or with the multi-shielded/secured laser cutter so no-one gets insured. In cafe all can eat together.
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´
06-04-2019 Fab Lab Nagano
The Shinshu university, hosting Fablab Nagano, has a strong educational department. So Fablab Naganos' size is similar to Fablab Setagayas' but the interiour allows for it to make a classroom out of it where actually courses are hold. But when I was there, the semester did not yet start so there was rather generic Fablab operation.
Like in FabCafe Tokyo, we did exchange about Fablab situation but here Klappacka owner was better prepared.
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Photos: 1st: Klappacka with owner and "Emosille", an Italian figure which was simplified by Natsumo Gomi so that children can make small versions of it. 2nd: Inside Fablab Nagano, on the right, there's Prof. Muramatsu. 3rd: Inside Fablab Nagano, also common people are working and get help on demand, here by Taisuke Koiwa, 4th: final photo of meeting team: Taisuke Koiwa (小岩泰輔), Natsumo Gomi (五味夏海), Jonas Bechtel (ベヒテル ヨナス) and Prof. Hiroyuki Muramatsu (村松浩幸).
06-04-2019 FabCafe Hida
The FabCafe Hida people are the unbeaten wood specialists in FabCafe world. Maybe because of their well-equipped production site?
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Photos: 1st - Work at FabCafe Hida, 2nd - Growing Seeds. Wooden case comes from here of course. 3rd - You can make chopsticks here, 4th - Cooking oak for color (experiment), 5th - Lots of wood which comes from neighboured woods, 6th - Prototype of chair and test of new management methods - Klappacka feels so remembered to Konglomerat, 7th - Final.
P. S.: They make delicious bakery food from local ingredients, similar to German "Spritzkuchen".
07-04-2019 Fablab Kitakagaya (+ Kobe β + Nishiharima β)
The Osaka evening was packed with presentations of different places - there were people from Fablab Kobe β, Nishiharima β and of course of local Fablab Kitakagaya present. (β in name means that fablab is not yet fully compliant to the basic rules such as open hours or giving courses but on a good way to become a true Fablab.
Aside the (virtual) presentations of the Fablabs we looked around the Fablab Kitakagaya / Cooperative Kitakagaya site. The Cooperative has similarities to Rosenwerk community (kitchen, room to store material, several mini-companies/artists present) and the Fablab has similarities to Konglomerat (e. g. that big CNC mashine for hardwood) though Konglomerat is some bigger.
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Photos: (1st) First thing you come along is the kitchen, (2nd) Fablab Kitakagaya is to the left, (3rd) big CNC, (4th) further tools.
11-04-2019 Takarazuka Revue and the Hankyu Company
Visiting Takarazuka Revue is an event which I recommend to begin in Umeda (near Osaka main station). Here you walk, as so often in Japan, through an shopping mile before you get to the platforms. The platforms of Hankyu Umeda station are pretty modern and fully operational for big masses of people, but the trains have some old-fashioned look, remembering former times (maybe like in the founding date of Takarazuka Revue?). [Side notice: in Japan the rail companies own also real estate and earn there 1/3rd of their money]
A Takarazuka Revue show (I don't really mean to spoiler this, but OK here it happens:) is usually a double show: one serious play and one revue part, both very musical, fast, and colorful, resulting in an esthetic-as-a-whole happening. There are fan clubs and lots of specific rules which you will have learned all as soon as you become a real fan. Until that, you may be explained by the other fans.
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Photos: depicting way to Revue. 1st - Hankyu Umeda Station, 2nd - Central Gate at Hankyu Umeda Station, 3rd - Train design of Hankyu trains as reminiscence to the past, 4th - Ads for Revue along all Takarazuka Line, on the right for upcoming "Oceans 11" show, 5th - Hankyu Takarazuka Station is devoted to the Revue, 6th - Grand entrance, 7th - Klappacka listening to automatic piano.
The play part of today was about an young man which got educated as warrior and tended to leave traces of blood behind him but was hindered to cause an massaker by a good-willing monk. The revue part brought oriental influences to nowadays entertainment.
12-04-2019 / 13-04-2019 Yonago, Sakaiminato
Unfortunately the night sleeper train (Sunrise Seto Izumo) was full so the journey to Yonago went on normal trains.
Yonago is a city near to Sakeiminato. It is nice in general (and in particular, considering the name is similar to Jonas ;-) ), but when you search for some digital print shop, you end up in foggy google maps results which lead to closed stores or to that vast shopping district mainly built for cars. (So you have to walk around the big parking lots). It's like some German cities in the 60th-80th.
On your way from Yonago to Sakaiminato and Sakaiminato itself is accompagnied by fabulous creatures.
Hm, where's Klappacka?
For the sportives: In Sakaiminato, you *can* walk to International Passenger Terminal, but there are few signs and it is far out (~3 km?). Even some workers in harbour don't know about it, so I suggest to bring either a map and/or enough time.
For the lazy and informed: They provide a bus shuttle from station to ferry.
15-04-2019 Vladivostok without stairs
After two nights on ferry and mainly calm sea Klappacka arrived at Vladivostok.
Vladivostok has lots of hills and lots of car traffic which implies lots of stairs, either to gather heights or to cross uncrossable streets. So Klappacka has some travel tipps for the calm and relaxed owners out there:
(Sorry, svg version will be embedded ... hopefully soon)
In general the shops/POIs marked on the map shall open up to around 22:00. The green lines on the map demark the stair-less ways, the red lines are stairs. The brownish/orange line is untested, it seems to be stair-less and intersection free.
Bonus: Use a dictionary (non-digital workflow)
While it is standard to enter kanji into smartphone to get their meaning (or enter it into language computers in pre-smartphone times) also printed dictionaries are available. However they require to be looked up in hiragana which renders them useless for non-japanese people who havent learned the readings of the x-thousend common kanji in school.
I scraped some websites and re-grouped them by number of strokes in order to replace the part which I never learned. It takes lots of time searching the kanji in the list but at least it works and it is faster than searching it in the dictionary. So my translation workflow looked like this (even though I have to admit that normally I used a web kanji painting tool):
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Version information
2. März 2019: Veröffentlichung bis zum Punkt "Klappacka unfolded"
6. März 2019 Veröffentlichung bis Moskau
13. März 2019: Veröffentlichung bis Donghae, kl. Korrektur Moskau
19. März 2019: Veröffentlichung bis Onomichi, kl. Korrektur Südkorea, Side-by-side-images possible.
(1.,7.,16.,)17. April 2019: Diverse Ergänzungen und Neubeiträge, um fast einen Monat nachzuholen. There are most links, full scale images, some English words and some names missing - sorry, will be completed soon.
29. April 2019: Removal of specific train station in Osaka (11-04-2019)
13th of July 2024: Minor improvement; revised Klappacka lost section 01-04-2019 (yet some TODOs)
15th of July 2024: Use printed dictionary