270. Among my proudest achievements was, during one brief train stop, running out to the platform vending machine LIKE A PRO to grab something quickly…pic.twitter.com/BeUnfbSZKE
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280. Sixth: I ate some ice cream in this 1958 dining car, now moored and converted into a restaurant.pic.twitter.com/rsCByPRRk2
281. Also! Also!!! They had an actual split-flap display with the original control panel. You have NO IDEA how excited this made me.pic.twitter.com/fqXWwHJ3U2
I spent so much time with it and figured all of it out (incl. some of its bugs) – at the end I was giving the Japanese people tips. That was really awesome. I really want to have one now.pic.twitter.com/llD1uLPt33
282. I saw these beautiful diagonal line train schedules at a museum (incl. a plotter that drew them!) and I assumed they were obsolete/vintage… but then I saw them in actual use on a commuter train!pic.twitter.com/4wcfW9maNP
283. This was a cool idea: putting a little camera atop a model train, and allowing kids to ride them, the view making model trains feel more like real trains.pic.twitter.com/dAL6kZgFMM
284. Stepping outside the museum… The first class is called Green Car here. What it is depends on the train, it seems. In this one, the Green Car was the front car: it had huge seats with a lot of legroom, and a great panoramic view.pic.twitter.com/fEOE3mJOYD
285. In this other train, Green Car was this system where after loading a Green Car ticket onto your transit card, you could just tap above to indicate you’re taking a seat. (It remembered your other choice, so if you swapped seats, it would un-flip your last one automatically!)pic.twitter.com/la4vco579A
286. I also had this fun moment when, enthralled with the views outside of the train window, I realized I wasn’t the only one.pic.twitter.com/AeMrkbhgSI
287. “Marcin, enough waxing poetically about trains. Show me more of those trash cans that look like robots.”pic.twitter.com/5Uy4DUnixh
288. How about this brick that inexplicably looked like a Face ID icon?pic.twitter.com/fG20HWpYWC
289. In this cool music store, I found a music keyboard that used 14-segment displays! Those were popular on pinball machines, but it was exciting to see them used elsewhere.pic.twitter.com/S9f7AUPoUl
290. (One vending machine also introduced me to this variant of a 7-segment display I haven’t seen before.)pic.twitter.com/tNA5lUrmd1
291. In another mall, after feeling overwhelmed, I sat down to one of the digital pianos, and simply started playing that one Bear McCreary’s sonata I know how to play. No one stopped me.pic.twitter.com/GoRJ1fyrOC
(If you’re interested, I wrote about this sonata a few years ago: https://medium.com/@mwichary/1-110-notes-9972f7779263 ….)
292. This happened more often, different flavours of being lost: in a bookstore where I couldn’t identify one single section; in a giant Shibuya train station, half under construction; in a heavy rush hour traffic where at times I felt I had little control over where I was going.
But at no point I felt unsafe, and those experiences I learned to treasure. Japan seemed like a perfect place to be lost before I went there; now I know it for sure.
(My internal compass is not great, but somehow in Japan I ended up going in the opposite direction than I intended even more often than usual.)pic.twitter.com/eHKZ0x4tci
We’re about to bring this threat to its end. It’s actually funny how it all started, completely unplanned, with this little exchange with my friend @wynlim. The list ended up much longer than I ever expected.pic.twitter.com/XZybBOkWnl
(And if you care, there’s a parallel keyboard-only Japan thread that is still going on… https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/958969046476636160 …)
You probably noticed a lot of patterns. Here’s another one. A lot of my discovery of Japan followed this routine: 1. Discover something amazing. 2. Realize this amazing thing is EVERYWHERE, a baseline. 3. Discover an even more extraordinary version of that thing, in some places.
One thing I didn’t mention much yet that follows that pattern was *people.* Everyone I met in Japan was very polite. But some of those people were incredibly kind.
I know just as I don’t understand “cute,” I don’t really have a strong grasp on the roots of the politeness and kindness. I know that sometimes it’s easy to mistake the latter for the former. I’m pretty sure, however, all of the following fell under the second category.
293. A staff of a small museum working hard to find someone who spoke even a bit of English, just to ask him to walk up to me as I was already halfway through the galleries, and apologize for their museum being so English-unfriendly.
294. After learning that I have to leave before 6am, the hotel staff preparing a breakfast care package just for me.pic.twitter.com/A5FUjhJ5ej
295. A woman in a café bringing me a card with wi-fi details after noticing I tried to use my phone.pic.twitter.com/3Hw5DpOxmm
296. A train station clerk going above and beyond to annotate my first-ever Shinkansen tickets to make sure I understood them.pic.twitter.com/xUUV6f5FR6
297. The cab driver studying some English while at the traffic stop, just so he could tell me that I need to go straight after I leave.pic.twitter.com/qBO9slrdkg
298. And then this, possibly my favourite moment in a trip filled with many wonderful moments.
I’m at a busy Shinjuku train station, trying to catch a train. I have Google Maps and all the tech but the station is so busy, and the trains run so often, that the moment I figure one train out, it’s already gone – and another train, on a faraway platform, takes its place.
After some 15 minutes of me trying to figure stuff out, I’m approached by a young girl who, in rudimentary English, asks me whether I need help. I rarely say yes when someone asks me that – but in that moment, I’m ready to say yes.
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