Tokyo Station projection mapping extravaganza

Tokyo Station was our first gateway into the city. We spilled off the Narita Express and into the rush-hour crowd with our bags and instructions to go out the Marunouchi Central exit. Sounded easy, but Tokyo Station was under such heavy renovation that the signs were a confusing taped-up patchwork of temporary rerouted arrows and the ground hobbled our suitcases with covered cables and uneven steel and rubber plates. That was 2008. The station has been under construction ever since. It's just about done now, though, scheduled for a grand re-opening on October 1.

They're celebrating with this big projection-mapping show. The opening and the part from about 7:15 are the best. Dinah Won't You Blow Your Horn goes on too long, and I don't quite get the magical nature and pan flutes bit. I guess they were never going to include the WWII air raid that damaged the building. Though that would have been interesting.

People who party in glass showrooms

I got invited to a party in my neighborhood for a company with a name that could as easily be a pharmaceutical maker as a defense contractor. I knew it wasn't either of these, but I couldn't remember what the industry was. The party was to launch a new product with a name that was equally opaque. The name was a combination of letters and numbers followed by a hyphen and then some syllables. I walked through the crowded rooms with a glass of wine in one hand and a paper plate of fancy cheese in the other. What was the T3-Whatsit, anyway? And where was it?

I looked in all the glass-walled showrooms for the new product the company was supposed to be showing off. Turns out they make glass walls.
— Sandra Barron (@sandrajapandra) September 13, 2012

Photo by TokyoDex

Why won't you let me out!?

I can't get off the train when others are standing in front of the door.

One of the things that makes visitors ooh and ah about how orderly Japan is is the train system. Rather, the way people use the train system. Japanese commuters form lines on the platform like iron shavings form lines over a magnetic grid. It is a tacit nod to the laws of physics, an acceptance that they cannot occupy the same space as the people who will inevitably spill out of the train when it stops. Unlike some (all) of the other cities we could name, the people waiting for trains in Tokyo keep clear a path for the people exiting the train. Once these same model citizens get on the train, though, they join the rest of the world in the belief that the inside of a train car is a magical space where the laws of physics are suspended. Once they are planted in front of the door, there they take root until they get out at their own stop. Sometimes they sway slightly out of the way like stalks of kelp; sometimes they stand firm. And it is a little enraging. Some of the kindest people I know admit to taking pleasure in elbowing their way through a stand of stubborn door blockers with sharp jabs. Imagine how much worse it would be if you were a weird little knee-high teddy bear.