On Saturday I went down to Tokyo to attend an event held by stormtrooper-blogger Danny Choo. It was great fun to hob-nob with other Japan blogger types, some of whom I’ve known through email or Twitter but never met in meatspace, then spend some quality anime karaoke time in Akihabara with friends. On Sunday I bummed around Tokyo, hitting some of my favorite bookstores in Shinjuku and wandering around some random shops. When I decided to head across the Yamanote — the famous loop line that runs around Tokyo — I accidentally got in the “women’s only” train car, which were set up a few years ago to allow women to commute to work without fear of being groped by Japan’s famous chikan train perverts. It wasn’t a problem for me to be there since the “women only” time is only during the peak commute hours, but it still felt odd to be sitting in the cute pink-decorated train car, like I’d entered a mysterious place where men were forbidden.I wonder what the girls do when there are no guys on the train. Probably party it up, passing around alcohol, like in the old Eddie Murphy SNL skit.
Japanese cities have “women only” train cars, which are kind of weird to ride in as a guy.
