MAeron comments

In the cities, any dense urban area where there is foot traffic at all times, it makes sense to keep 24-hour stores.

In the outskirts, rural areas, parts of the city that shut down at night, have most all of the stores keep train line hours. They close after the last trains and open before the first trains the following morning. Additionally. still have one shop in any given area chosen to remain 24-hours in case of an emergency (national or personal). Preferably the one with the most amenities.

I live near a station where you can literally take a 100 meter walk in a certain area and see five different FamilyMarts along the route. The companies that own these stores might be justified to have that kind of density during the day, but at night they could have all but one or two of them close. The local franchisees can get together to decide who is open and who is closed and even take turns staying open at night to make it fair for everyone.

There are many different ways to go about this that a blanket “shut down everything!” policy in response to a single edge case.

It's gotten to the point where the vast majority of train strikes in Japan seem to be accidental. That's terrific compared to the days when someone intentionally jumping in front of a train was a normal weekday. I think that all the transportation companies operating in Tokyo need to be made to bite the bullet and make platform gates ubiquitous throughout the city.

Cost and time consumption be damned, the lives of riders are worth so much more. Gates would have prevented something like this from happening. At worst, she would have slumped over the railing.

Warning: A giant local service CRAB is quickly approaching!

JR Kawasaki Station has had similar signs for years now. The two or three times I've seen someone trying to stand on the right side, they get ushered along or move to the left when people come up behind them.

The "Gateway" in the name is unnecessary. This means its going be more bunched up than Takadanobaba and Nishi-Nippori on the signs and displays.

"Takanawa Gateway Station" is far away from the longest romaji station names, even just in Tokyo.

Chūō-Daigaku-Meisei-Daigaku Station

Higashi-ikebukuro-yonchome Station

Only five minutes? That’s prettty good, to be honest. There’s no excusing the oversight but it is relieving that they know how to think on their feet.

I regularly see local fire fighters training at their stations or on the streets, it’s quite a sight. They take their jobs super seriously.

Pardon me for my ignorance, but don't they have fire hydrants or underground pipes to get water from in the event that their stored water isn't enough?

Only in certain places. If you pay close attention while walking through neighborhood, you’ll see red, circular signs for either a FIRE HYDRANT or FIRE CISTERN. More developed places have a high pressure tap, while more rural areas either have buried water tanks... or nothing at all.

it does seem a little backwards, but newer construction I see, like new apartment buildings, do include sockets for fire hoses. It’s probably a matter of limited resources and a LOT of old construction throughout the country. Going back and laying pipe in places where houses are still using wells or nested in the mountains would be quite an undertaking.

The Edo-Tokyo History Museum has a similar setup at the end of their display. But if this is larger and more detailed, then I definitely want to check it out.

For starters the clocks should be set back 1-2hrs PERMANENTLY!!

Back? I don’t want the sun to rise in Chiba at 3 in the morning during the summer. It’s weird enough to see blue light in the sky at 4:45.

Conversely, I do enjoy getting up before 6 and still getting to see sunlight during breakfast.

Goodness, this picture makes Paul McCartney look like an 80-year-old Japanese woman.

I do wish I had the time to see him play live.