audio snapshot: Kyoto city bus

[radhardened]

Ever since I got a camera small enough to tuck in my obi, I've been happy with my ability to photograph nearly any interesting thing I happen to see. But I often think I'd like to be able record and share audio snapshots of my experiences, too. I don't have any good audio recording equipment or know of any good audio-hosting/sharing resources, but here's a humble start on the endeavor, anyway: ~20 minutes (4.4 MB) of Ogg Vorbis audio from a recent ride on a Kyoto city bus, recorded with my cell phone (so, crappy quality). Nothing unusual happens in the course of the recording, which is exactly as I had intended. I don't expect it will interest most of my readers. You'll hear the bus driver making announcements in a drawn-out monotone that my classmates and I find amusing, pre-recorded announcements of the next stop name, and various audio indicators about opening and closing doors. If you're interested, enjoy. I find riding the bus here to be comfortable, even soothing, so I wanted to capture the sound of it as a personal memory.

Comments

[hasufin]

You know, it makes remarkably good background noise!

I'm not hearing a lot of conversation. In anime, people on the bus and train are always depicted as being very quiet; I had assumed this was mostly a convention so you can hear the main characters. Is it actually just the norm? Or were there just not very many people on the bus that day?

I don't find it very relaxing to ride the bus here; the route I used to take to work was usually very crowded, and often I'd have trouble finding a seat, which would make for a boring and unpleasant 45 minutes. But it beats driving!

[radhardened]

Yes, in my experience, people are generally quiet on buses and trains, and a rider should definitely expect some negative reactions to talking on a cell phone, which announcements remind us to keep in "manner mode". Passengers do talk quietly with other people they're riding with, but rarely loud enough to overhear.

[openbrian]

Very enjoyable, like SomaFM's Mission Control. Thanks for posting. Sounds like it was a rainy day.

[radhardened]

Glad you liked it! IIRC it wasn't rainy, but maybe the white noise you're hearing as rain was engine noise or an artifact of my sub-par recording equipment.