Traveling with Shunzo Miyawaki? A trip with the [Hokkaido & East Japan Pass]

5:00 AM at Tokyo Station.

A time like a giant concrete shell, before the city begins to move of its own volition.

Like toys in a basket, the giants of cultural geography were already stranded in front of the information board.

👓 Professor Sauer: "I see... This scrap of paper called the 'East Japan & Hokkaido Pass' is a highly administrative device for forcibly mapping a vast space onto a single plane."

👓 Professor Relph: "No, the problem is this inhumane '5:00 AM meeting' time setting. The pinnacle of placelessness, where the spirit is turned into symbols before humans can form an attachment to a place (topophilia), begins here."

📖 Professor Tuan: "But look at the lights of the first train sliding into the empty platform. That light is now surely rewriting this inorganic space into a place for our journey...!"

Mr. Miyawaki: "Everyone, if you argue so loudly from early in the morning, it will bother the station staff and other passengers. Today, I will guide you to an 'isolated sanctuary.' Actually, I have more JRE points on my View Card than I can use. If we exchange these for Green Car tickets for local trains, we can all travel quietly."

Chizuru (eyes wide): "Wait, Mr. Miyawaki, Green Car tickets for everyone with points? ...Hey, you three scholars, thank the man. Now, we're moving to Ueno on the Yamanote Line. Professor Sauer, that's the inner loop! It takes over 50 minutes to go around, so that's no good! Professor Relph, not the Chuo Line! Why are you getting on the escalator for platforms 1 and 2, this way!"

Ririko: "Professor Tuan, don't just stand in the shadow of the pillar feeling the wind, hurry up! We'll miss the 5:32 AM train to Utsunomiya!"

5:32 AM, from Platform 15 at Ueno Station

The group, having scrambled more than a Yoshimoto Shinkansen comedy troupe to reach the low-level ground platform at Ueno Station, was sucked into the Green Cars of cars 4 and 5. They climbed the stairs with a clatter and settled into the supportive reclining seats of the second-floor deck, where a few elderly people were still sitting quietly.

As Mr. Miyawaki touched his six Suica cards in turn to the seat lamps above everyone's heads, the lamps changed vividly from red to 'green'.

Chizuru (lowering her voice): "Phew... saved. This is a space where we paid—no, where we received 'silence' thanks to the teacher's points, so all three of you, please don't speak loudly."

👓 Professor Sauer (whispering): "Hmm... To think that a two-layered space (upper deck) called a first-class car, which is so comfortable, is mounted on top of a local train. This is the wisdom of advanced spatial stratification that the Japanese have devised to survive the 'harsh landscape' of the commuter rush."

👓 Professor Relph: "No, this looks like a symbol of modern placelessness. This place, physically several meters above the 'real ground surface' of the lower seats, is just like an airplane cabin. The connection to the land is becoming diluted."

Ririko (looking out the window): "But Professor. The view from this second-floor seat is a little higher than a normal train window, isn't it? The second floors of houses beyond the soundproof walls and the treetops in gardens are coming right into my line of sight. Don't you think this is a new way of 'peeking' at the scenery?"

📖 Professor Tuan (nodding deeply): "An excellent point, Ririko. Just by being a few meters higher, you are rewriting the sense of distance from the world to be 'intimate.' This is not an alienation of space, but the acquisition of a new perspective."

Mr. Miyawaki reclined his seat by just one notch and quietly popped the pull-tab of a long can. It was Yebisu, with a decent alcohol content and a touch of elegance, fitting for a Green Car.

Mr. Miyawaki: "It's the job of you scholars to categorize space. But you know, I love the Kanto Plain as seen from this 'second-floor special seat,' which is lower than the Shinkansen but a little higher than a normal train. You can see someone walking their dog early in the morning over there, right? That person has no idea that their life is being peeked at from the second-floor seat of the 5:32 AM train from Ueno. 'Two unrelated lives' intersect for a moment at just under 100 kilometers per hour. This is travel."

The weight of 1 hour and 40 minutes

After the train passes Oku, crosses Akabane, and leaves Omiya, it enters the true 'weight' of this Utsunomiya Line. Hasuda, Kuki, Koga, Oyama... Station names that would pass by in mere seconds on a Shinkansen are each carefully etched into the view from the window. A full 1 hour and 40 minutes from Ueno to Utsunomiya. The 'time where nothing happens,' which is most unbearable for modern people, flows by slowly.

Chizuru looked at her watch and sank deep into her seat.

Chizuru: 'We've been running for 15 minutes since leaving Omiya, and we're still at Hasuda. Utsunomiya is still so far away. I thought about watching a video on my phone, but just gazing blankly outside from this second-floor seat makes time feel stretched out... It makes looking at a smartphone screen feel ridiculous.'

👓 Professor Relf: 'Exactly, Chizuru. Modern 'excessively fast travel' turns every place except the departure point and the destination into meaningless space. However, this exquisite speed of 1 hour and 40 minutes gives a unique context (place) to the 'ordinary places' reflected in the window, such as the fields, the roadside shops that appear occasionally, and the prefabricated factories.'

👓 Professor Sauer (pointing enthusiastically at the farmland outside the window): 'Look at that, the way the flatland forests remain, and the transition of the 'cultural landscape' of the Kanto Plain where new residential areas are encroaching like moth-eaten holes. This is something that probably cannot be captured in a 15 or 20-minute trip. Only by continuing to stare at the landscape that is the same, yet definitely changing, do the layers of history that humans have carved into the land become visible.'

Ririko: 'The Shinkansen is a 'pipe' for transporting Tokyo's capital to the provinces. But this second-floor seat on the Utsunomiya Line is North Kanto, which exists as a continuous extension from Tokyo. It's a 'corridor' for feeling the gradation as the air gradually changes to the atmosphere of the 'North'.

Miyawaki-sensei was gazing at the unreliable morning light outside the window while quietly opening his second can of Yebisu beer.

Miyawaki-sensei: 'Everyone, you are quite enthusiastic even though we are still at the beginning of the journey. This endless, almost boring scenery outside the window is the best snack. This landscape is what makes beer taste good from the morning. Since it takes 1 hour and 40 minutes to get to Utsunomiya, the roar of the truss bridge when crossing the Tone River at Kurihashi and the sparkle of the water surface that spreads out all at once feel like the main dish. Taking time means fully savoring the nuances of the scenery.'

📖 Professor Tuan (scribbling furiously in his notebook): 'Experience of Time and Space...! Miyawaki-sensei, with just your words, you have proven how time enriches space...!'

Chizuru (smiling bitterly): 'Professors, if you're that moved just by crossing the Tone River, won't you be crying and fainting by the time we pass Kuroiso and cross the Shirakawa Barrier? Look, we're arriving at Koga. We've only just entered Ibaraki Prefecture. Utsunomiya is still a long, long way off, you know.'

The train continues to crawl northward through the endless Kanto Plain, sounding its rhythmic joint noises. It is a journey of six people 'coming to terms' with the distance that the Shinkansen erases in 30 minutes, taking 1 hour and 40 minutes to do so, in the supreme silence obtained thanks to Miyawaki-sensei's JRE points.

Now, having finished the boring yet beloved 100-minute journey across the plain, the train finally slides into Utsunomiya Station, where the scent of gyoza and the railway 'beyond' await. What kind of 'next rail' will appear before the group as they head north using only local trains from here?