24 February 2010
AM
At about 9:58am, a man on my train carriage bound for Gakken-Nara-Tomigaoka fell asleep. His newspaper, although appearing to be a respectable broadsheet, was actually filled with full frontal nudity. The paper, slumped forward at about the same time as he did. No-one gawked, nor blinked. A normal situation (right: Tokyo subway poster)
PM
As I stepped on to the platform at Tsuruhashi station at about 5:25pm, I was confronted by the mingling of two opposing smells. The first, which had assaulted me in the morning was the acrid stench of extinct barbecues and burnt fat - exactly the smell which lingers around a boozy camp fire. This particular smell, wasn't initially included in my short list of 'bad smells in Japan', however since returning from Malaysia (my olfactory organs refreshed) I have noted the putrid stench every wednesday morning on my way to work. It will now forever be in league with my memories of that place. The second, smell, was the incredibly precursor to the first. The amazing smell of tens or hundreds of Yakiniku restaurants, blurs the airs of Tsuruhashi station every night with a blueish haze. It is an amazing and probably delicious place - until the morning. (right: a map of Tsuruhashi that could possibly show the smell radius)
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