Ikebukuro Station

This picture evokes vivid memories.

April 2013, I'm underground in Tokyo, in Ikebukuro Station, the second busiest train station in the world with over 2.7 million passengers a day.

I never walk up on the surface of Tokyo. I've just arrived from Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku, the nether regions of Japan, to catch a train back out of Tokyo on the Seibu-Chichibu private railway. My self-imposed assignment is to be a Tokyo resident who needs to get away from the mega-city for the weekend. I'm heading to hiking country.

I'm walking past the underground entrance to the Seibu Department Store; this flagship store and the Seibu-Chichibu railway have the same owners. I imagine myself invisible in the crowd; nobody looks at me directly, we all float through this busy underground world, maintaining our personal spaces. Everybody is on a mission; I'm on a fake mission.

I notice the two greeters at the welcome desk in the department store. I stop and take a picture. They notice me and start moving towards the entrance, presumably to pose for a formal bow.

This is not what I had planned. I was invisible, merely an observer: I hadn't intended to change what I was observing. I bow quickly towards them, they bow back, and I become part of the crowd again.

The best travel is little things.