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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

Taking a break from stuff. The first two are actually well translated. Both are written from right to left as I supposed. The first is “Suruga Suzukawa Kawaibashi Fuji”. Kawa=river and bashi=bridge.

The second, again right to left; (Tosa Meisho) Katsurahama no. 1.

Tosa is a province in old Japan.

Meisho is famous place or place of interest.

Hama is beach.

From online pics, looks similar today as it did them. At least the rocky out cropping in the back ground.

Off to dinner, this will probably be all I can do today. Maybe someone else will help with the others later.

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epimetheus's avatar

Great, thanks a lot!

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Candy's avatar

In the first picture-is that an upside down boat falling apart? Or am I reading too much into it? Beautiful place

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epimetheus's avatar

I dunno, I chose it because it's one of the few Japanese postcards that were actually sent (plus it's dated). Did you see the stamp on the reverse? It says 'via Siberia', i.e., that one was shipped by rail across Russia.

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Candy's avatar

I saw that! How interesting. I’m amazed at how well things got around the world

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kapock's avatar

The one of the pretty park is the Kikugetsu (Moon Scooping) Pavillion teahouse in Ritsurin Garden in Kagawa Prefecture.

The one with the waterfront scene is difficult to read for me.

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epimetheus's avatar

Cheers, thanks for the reference!

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ExcessDeathsAU's avatar

Stunning! Just stunning!

I have always wanted to visit Japan and see the monkeys in the hot springs. Don't know why, but I find them delightful.

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epimetheus's avatar

I don't have any postcards of these monkeys, though, at least not from before WW2.

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Run Freedom Run's avatar

Dream-like beauty

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epimetheus's avatar

It's a long bygone era; to me, it seems so remote, both in space and time, perhaps because I've never been? (Although, back then, I doubt that there's a more 'Westernised' place around 1910 outside 'the West'…

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

These are lovely. I will do what I can on translation but others will probably be able to do so before I can even start. Busy this weekend. One thing to keep in mind, Japanese can be written and thus read vertically, too to bottom and horizontally from either the left or right. Right to left was still common when these cards were printed. I don’t think translating apps can read Japanese from right to left.

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epimetheus's avatar

Thanks for these insights--they show my ignorance of Japanese culture and history. I thought about machine translations but I haven't gotten around…more postcards are coming soon.

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