Hidemi's Rambling No.376

I visited the Tokyo metropolitan area for the first time in six months since I moved out there. After getting off the bullet train, I walked to the faraway platform to transfer the train. Because Tokyo Station is too big and so many different train lines come in, it took fifteen minutes to get to the platform even by using the moving-walk. The whole station was filled with an enormous number of people even though it was midday of a weekday. It reminded me of a news image of a department’s floor in US on Black Friday. I assume the total number of people walking in a long tunnel between the platforms for one day exceeds the number of shoppers for one year at the busiest shopping area in the town where I currently live. On both sides of the tunnel were cool shops that glowed in the dazzling light. After a 40-minute train ride, I arrived at the nearest station to Costco, which was my first destination for this two-day trip. This station was also crammed with passengers all the way to the ticket gate. To descend from the platform to the ticket gate, the long lines were formed in front of the huge stairways. It took a good ten minutes to exit the station and I missed the bus to Costco. It was raining with bitter wind, as the weather forecast had said. The thing that has been almost always wrong proved right on the particular day of my trip…