(220829) Writing is kind of an unpredictable thing. At the moment it's nearing 3:00 a.m. and I can't sleep, so I've decided to post some pictures from the year 2000 along with some text. Not sure how this is going to turn out... you never really know what you're going to write until you get going and then the words either come or they don't (simplification, but close).
Looking out the front of a train is quite a different feeling from looking out the front windshield of a car. In the train, the tracks are there leading the train, so there's a relaxed feeling of zooming into a kind of planned future. In a car, there can be (depending on the road and the traffic) an adventurous feeling of being able to go anywhere, but also a slight sense of potential danger since the car's trajectory is in the hands of the driver (yourself or someone else).
2000年/平成十二年
2000年/平成十二年
(220915) This picture (below). At the time, it was still a new thing for there to be retail shops inside of stations. Back in the mid 1980's, most stations only had the newspaper stands with printed publications and some other odds and ends for sale, and I remember I found Shinagawa Station intriguing since it had restaurants inside the station, which was unusual at the time. Now, stations are less stations than shopping malls built over train tracks - retail first and foremost with the trains seemingly of secondary importance?
2000年/平成十二年
I like these older type train cars more than modern train cars for a number of reasons - the vents in the ceiling that could let in outside air via the roof vents, the completely open-able windows, and the general lack of plastic. And then there is some hard-to-define aspect... that makes them seem more friendly and sturdier?
The briefcase! I just realized when looking at this photo from 2000 that I don't recall seeing them lately... have they stopped carrying this type of case?
2000年/平成十二年
There's more stuff packed into stations now, so they have lost the big open space feeling may of them used to have.
2000年/平成十二年
What is different between places and times? Things that look the same can be quite different and things that look completely different can be remarkably the same.
The special no-contact zone that a train in motion was before is quite different now. There are good and bad aspects to being in a no-contact zone in motion, but this photo of the inside of a Keihin-Tohoku Line train reminds me of the good aspects.....
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon - www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/ - youtube.com/lylehsaxon - lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/ - lookback1997.blogspot.jp/
