Osaka Scenes
Trains and Boots
Trains.
Most people in Japan ride trains in one form or another for one hour a day or more, often much more for daily commuters. This is all possible because of a complex system of rail line, trains, subways and even monorail, that cover even to the farthest reaches of Japan. There are thousands of train connections and stations that join various rail systems. Huge underground structures have been built that spring from the train but now contain hundreds of shops and restaurants as well as he basements and sub basements of the major department stores.
Yet this complex system is efficient, clearly marked and signed and always on time. It may be an important factor in Japanese culture, because people can calculate with great accuracy how long it take to get from one place to another and as a consequence, things happen usually right on time.
There are the rapid bullet trains that can get you from Osaka to Tokyo in about three hours and the Nankaisen Rapid Express that goes from the Osaka International Airport to Namba in downtown Osaka in about 40 minutes, and hundreds of local, express and semi express trains that take you from one part of town to another or from one town to another.
Perhaps because people spend so much time on the train, people doze a lot on the trains and it is not unusual to see at any time of the day, perhaps half of the passengers dozing off, usually wkaing up in time for their stop.
The Boots
There was a fashion craze for extremely high boots among young women in Japan. They looked rather difficult to manage and were unstable when walking about in them. The newspapers did report a few fatalities from young women falling over in these boots and injuring their heads, but the fashion persisted.
The Umeda subway station
The Shinkansen Bullet train
The Nanakai Express
A local train
Asleep on the train
Boots on a store rack
Boots on the train
