On the way to work

It takes me about an hour to get from my place to Sega each morning.  So far I’ve been sweating quite a bit after the 15 minute walk from my place to the first train station.  I’m not sure if that’s because I’m just out of shape or because it’s so humid or both.  For example today it couldn’t have been warmer than about 75 degrees (f) and it was raining but I was still pretty sweaty by the time I got to the station.

Here are some sites long the way.

Lots of people use bikes.  Nobody locks them and guess what, they don’t get stolen.

This is a "snack" bar.  In Japan there are places called Hostess Bars.   You pay around $100 minimum to get in and then you have a drink and some girl flirts with you.  (Note: nothing other than flirting goes on and since you know that’s all your going to get it’s supposed to be relaxing)  The difference between a hostess bar and a snack bar is that at a snack bar you don’t get your own girl.   There are just a couple of girls and they go around the room being friendly to everybody.  Two years ago a friend took me to a snack bar in Goi.  For the three of us, 2 beers and a coke it was $120.

One of the roads (michi) on the way to the station (eki).

This is one of the many convenience stores.  There are few big chains.   Family Mart, Lawson, 7-11, Am/Pm.  Family Mart has a promotion using the art of Rodney Greenblat (of Parappa the Rapper fame)

Johnathan’s is like the Japanese version of Denny’s (all though they’ve got Denny’s here too).  I’d say the food at these places is much better here than in America.  Like Denny’s they are open 24 hours.

This is the area just in front of Musashi-Shinjo station.  You just can’t escape McDonalds.

And here’s the station.  As you can see, even pretty far outside of Tokyo they’ve still got some English.  It takes me about 20 minutes to get to the next station.

Here’s the next station.  It’s Kawasaki station.  It’s alot larger than my home station.  There are three lines that come into this station.

Just outside of Kawasaki station is this place.  Azalea.  It’s an underground mall with probably like 100 or more stores.  If it’s raining you can walk through here to get to Keikyu Kawasaki.

From there I have to walk about five minutes to another station. Here’s some of the sites on the way.

Japan has many different train companies that run to different places.  The first train I ride is a JR train (Japan Railways).  The second is Keikyu railways so this station is called Keikyu Kawasaki. 

From there I ride to Keikyu Kamata station in Kamata (about 10 minutes).  Then, I switch to another Keikyu train at that station which finally takes me to Otori station in Ohta where Sega is.