Apothecary Shed

First thing in the morning, during rush hour on day 1 in Japan, the orderliness and silence of the chiyoda metro is astonishing. It was just after 8:30am when we slipped into the stream of commuters through a side entrance, and filed down the steps, walking on the left side in perfect order, reached a door line, waited 45 seconds, boarded an entirely silent car and made our way in 15 minutes from the Peninsula basement to Meiji-Jinga. There were even seats on the train.

Welcome to Japan, where rumors of smashed commuters confront the reality of perfect order.

Contrast this with the day 12 Ginza line metro ride (unplanned until after breakfast) back from Sensō-ji on the last day…which was packed with unruly tourists who were noisy, uncouth, and didn’t follow the rules (simply because they didn’t know the rules and didn’t have enough cultural awareness to find out that there even were rules). Take a cab instead of the Ginza line.

We did meet some nice people at the end of the line who snapped this picture of us.

One guess which metro trip we enjoyed the most.