Misty days

Finished Theroux's 'The Great Railway Bazaar', which was about his journey from London to Japan and back again by train, in 1973. He didn't seem too enamoured with Japanese rail travel, writing "Lacking the traditional features of the railway bazaar, the Japanese train relies on aircraft comforts: silence, leg room, a reading light ... Speed puts some people to sleep; others it makes breathless. It doesn't enliven conversation. I missed the slower trains with the lounge cars and the rackety wheels. Japanese train journeys were practical, uncongenial transitions from city to city: only the punctual arrival mattered. The frseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefronning trains of Asia were behind me."

As I sat reading this on my way to work this morning, comforted by the rocking motion of the 8:29 Hanabatake Express through the mist, I can't help thinking he should have skipped the Shinkansen, and travelled local!