Photos from Train Platforms Posted

I’m completely in vacation mode now. I tried to come up with something to post last night but I couldn’t convince myself to sit at the computer (since sitting at computers is what I do for a substantial amount of my non-vacation time). We’ve been having a great time and have been putting in fairly long days, and hence I haven’t found much time and energy for writing.

[Digression: The TV’s on so that we can get our nightly dose of somewhat incomprehensible game shows and surreal commercials. One disturbing difference I’ve noticed this year is that American companies like Glade have started pushing so-called air freshener products into the Japanese market. I’ll refrain from going into a rant about how these things should be banned because they’re essentially dispensers of airborne solvents and poisons, and instead simply say that it’s dismaying that a country that makes the best incense on the planet has become a new market for these nasty things.]

I just posted a set of photos taken on train platforms here. I suppose I wouldn’t like train platforms as much as I do if I had to stand on them every day while commuting. However, perhaps because of their novelty, or perhaps because our day trips in Japan usually begin on a train platform, I’m quite fond of them. They also seem like textbook examples of vanishing-point perspective with their tracks stretching off into the distance in both directions. Occasionally they’re nearly empty; these are the best times for taking photos.

[Speaking of surreal commercials, I just watched a 20-second spot that involved a woman doing stretches while talking to three white, stuffed, animated seals. I have no idea what it was advertising.]