CXIX - Tokyo

Another tasty bento! This time it's a vegetarian one, bought at Tokyo station while waiting for the shinkansen to take me to Kyoto. Little rice balls flavoured with shiso furikake (紫蘇ふりかけ, a purple-mint seasoning), tasty grilled vegetables and a few slices of fresh fruit... oishii (美味しい, "delicious")!!

LXXIX - Tokyo

The Pokemon Train!

JR East has decorated 13 of their shinkansen (新幹線, bullet trains) with characters from the popular videogame and animation Pokemon! These trains operate on the Tohoku, Joetsu, Akita, Yamagata and Nagano lines during the summer months, from July to September, which is when Japanese schoolchildren are on holiday. The trains even have Pokemon-themed decoration inside!

Sorry about the bad picture, it was going very fast!

LXXV - Tokyo

Before my journey, I was warned by a couple of acquaintances who had visited Japan to beware of Tokyo's subway. They warned me that I was certain to get lost in a labyrinth of kanji signs and hurrying businessmen.

Nothing could be further from my experience.

It is true, many of the signs are kanji-only. However, there are multitudes of super-kind Japanese men and women, who will try to help a confused-looking gaijin before he even has time to open his mouth to ask. There are even a few white-gloved Enrish-speaking attendants waiting by the ticket machines to help out with buying whatever ticket you need. You just need to name your destination, or point your finger on the map.

And on the subway itself, there are pleasant female voices announcing all the stops, as well as these fancy signs pictured which light up to show the direction the train is going in and the current stop.

It's foolproof, really.

II - Tokyo

Once the train has been thoroughly cleaned, the supercute sign is removed and the cleaners line up next to the doors and bow with perfectly choreographed moves.

See those coloured lines and numbers on the platform floor? They show people where to queue. There are different coloured lines for every train stopping at that platform, and numbers show you where any car of any train will stop. And believe me, it will stop precisely there.


Ahhh~~~ perfection.

I - Narita

The first image I ever shot in Japan is -quite predictably- related to trains.

Imagine being tired after a 12-hour flight. Imagine being pissed off because of some rude airplane attendant. Imagine having eaten only slimy macaroni and those tiny complimentary crackers, having watched half a dozen crappy movies while trying to doze off, and having miserably failed due to the full-volume flight announcements the pilots just feel they have to make.

Finally, you land in Narita Airport and while vowing to never again buy plane tickets from that company, you somehow manage to be swept towards the shuttles that take you to Tokyo. Not hard to find. You're still too dazed to properly take in the unusual cleanliness which surrounds you, and when you stumble into your seat, you might be lucky enough to nod off right away. You haven't slept in 24hrs, after all.

Then you awake in Tokyo station, in a whole different universe.

Trains run perfectly on time, there isn't a speckle of dirt or dust in sight. Hundreds of busy people are going about their own business, and yet they all stop in their tracks and kindly ask if you need any help the instant you pull out a map (or do anything else that might indicate you are a mildly confused gaijin).

Is this a real place?, I hear you ask.

Once you reach the right platform and you read the sign hanging from the train's open doors, you come to the conclusion that it can't be. It reads: Just Moment Please, and shows a smiley girl with cleaning gear... and a chick.

Please focus on that sickeningly cute random tiny yellow chick, and tell me how can such a perfect country actually exist.