Today I was at the station waiting for the bullet train (also known as the Shinkansen) when I saw the Hello Kitty train pull into the station going the other direction.
I actually rode it once. You just have to be lucky enough to catch it when it gets to the station. They have a little display set up in the front car for little kids. The rest of the train is like any other one, except they have Hello Kitty stickers and decals.
I never really understood the attraction to Hello Kitty or some of the other cute mascots they have running around Japan. But whoever is inventing these mascots is making a fortune.
But sometimes things backfire. Do you know the story of Tritium, the Radioactive Bunny Mascot who TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) introduced to convince people it was okay to release just a little treated contaminated water from Fukushima into the ocean?… and I’m not kidding…. Here is a link to the story.
If you go back to the video of the Hello Kitty train video and listen at the beginning you will hear some bird song. Those are not real birds – they are recordings of birds of prey that are piped into the station to keep birds away from the trains. When a bullet train traveling at 200mph hits a bird it can mean major damage to the train – not to mention what happens to the bird.
Right before the train pulled in I saw a little sparrow hopping along the track. I guess he wasn’t buying the decoy. I feel bad for the little guy when he goes back into the wild. Probably tells all his sparrow friends not to worry about those noises. Then they all get eaten. It’s actually pretty sad when you think about it.
Transition to Japan 