Friday, September 18, 2009

Toride

Of Interest: one of Tokyo's bedroom communities
Lodging: no
Tourist Office: no
Lockers: small, medium, and large for only 100 yen
International ATM: In a 7-11 to the right of the station entrance

Toride is a transport hub for commuters going into Tokyo. It is only 40 minutes to Ueno Station by Joban line Express (JR East). The station is the terminus of the Joso line of the Kanto Railway (Keisei subsidiary).

The city of Toride has several train stations. It is hard to tell Toride Station is downtown or not. There is a small department store near the station, but few buildings of note.

Update: A couple of things have made me think about this city again. Someone told me that he used to live in Toride, and today I saw a request for articles about doing "special" things in "exotic" places. I really like to feel the "ordinariness" of things. Toride is very "ordinary", but it left a vivid impression on me.

Part of my challenge for this website is to express the experience of walking out of the station. Walking to end of the road that leads away from the station, walking back, seeing certain kinds of buildings near the station, seeing other (smaller) building further away, eating at the It0-yokado, going to the 7-11, very ordinary things.

Ito-yokado is like Target, and it is places like that that show you what a country is really like.

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