Quite what the fare was from London to Japan is anybody’s guess, but a day-saver definitely wouldn’t have done it. And yet despite the cost, along with the undoubted difficulties, this bus, once bound for Victoria, is now no longer in use in Nasu.
A decidedly sorry sight for such a stately double-decker, with its previous destinations and prestigious past still proudly,
if somewhat sadly, proclaimed.
However, the past aside, in its new home it was rather half-heartedly turned into a restaurant of sorts, at least on the lower deck.
Whereas upstairs still seems totally untouched, so it may have briefly returned to the past and once again been a sanctuary for those after ciggie.
But either way, not many tickets must have been taken, along with capacity never being much of a concern.
And yet with the driver’s cabin still pretty much complete, maybe, just maybe, one more destination is still doable.
Quite why I find mannequin scarecrows so mesmerising I don’t know. Maybe it’s due to the sadness they somehow exude. Or that sometimes they are simply sinister. Although more than likely it’s probably down to the strangely fascinating care the farmers take in regards their fashion.
Even if, when it comes to cosmetics, they are more than a little carefree.
It may well be only mad dogs and Englishmen that go out in the midday sun, but regardless of how deranged this dog’s mind might be, it still had the comfort of some cooling water, which the camera-carrying Englishman could only covet.
Some countries, which quite disappointingly includes my own, are making it increasingly difficult for photographers to happily go about their business without any bother; a terrible misuse of the law that instead of tackling terrorists is crippling the creative.
And yet that said, it could be argued that sometimes, in some cases, a certain amount of restraint is actually required, and particularly so when it involves plants, as this poor shrub, quietly trying to photosynthesise, unfortunately found itself photographically affronted.
The victim of an ambush even.
The foreign media almost always depicts Japan as some kind of hi-tech wonderland, continually touting its toilets that deal with way more than waste, along with robots to tackle whatever said toilets can’t do.
But scratch just a fraction below the surface, and tradition is often far more to the fore than technology. Then dig a little deeper, quite literally, and at this time of year nothing seems to have changed since the centre of the metropolis itself was all fields, let alone what are now just its western outreaches.
The seemingly unnecessary donning of a hard hat the only discernible nod to modernity. Well, that and the wellingtons.
