2021 wasn’t the best of years, certainly not a good one for transit as ridership everywhere continues to be severely impacted by COVID. Yet travel in Japan felt normal, more or less the new normal of face masks in public places and hand gel dispensers at the door…but compared to […]
Cool Japan - Culture Wars
The YouTube JP Zeitgeist: boobs, butts, celebrities and gossip gurl Heraiza
I have no idea who the top Japanese YouTuber is right now but Heraiza is the ‘it girl’, the zeitgeist of our Japanese COVID state of emergency moment. Not only is this 17 year old high schooler way smarter and wicked funnier than the tired recycled Japanese ‘tarento’ on YouTube, […]
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Riding 272km on 42km ICOCA fare
The ICOCA IC fare region extensions that went into effect March 13 have opened up some interesting transit possibilities. ICOCA has a 200km travel limit but the exit gate fare is calculated by the shortest route possible. YouTuber yasu who specializes in finding convoluted transit IC travel options, posted a […]
Cool Japan - Transit
Abandoned Tokaido Line
Suit Train posted a wonderful video with his patented narration style. For a college guy he’s already way more professional, and much better than many TV announcers, and has that rare talent of talking with a instantly prepared script in his head. This particular video covers a section of the […]
Cool Japan - Transit
The Art of Train Announcements
This morning the conductor made an announcement as the Yamanote train pulled into Meguro station: “This train is not a waste basket, kindly fold newspapers and take reading material with you when you leave,” and went on to kindly remind passengers to hold backpacks in the front, put them on […]