Densha de inemuri. Dozing-off. Sleeping. Today, on the Semi-Express, I found myself standing next to a salaryman who was snoring, full nostrils. Standing up. No small feat. The ability to get into the Land of Nod on the instant by Japanese passengers is astounding. Sit down. Arrange bag. Hands usually clasped. Head down…and off and away. You can find yourself next to a flat-out, legs splayed, commuter, or the gentle purveyor of zzzzs, or the eyes halfclosed dozer. Often a sleeper will land head on your shoulders and you have to exert the polite shove. Either way some magic internal clock operates and at the appropriate station wakefulness takes hold and he or she heads for the carriage-door. A whole lexicon gathers and lingers in your own watching mind. Somnolence. Catalepsy. Narcolepsy. Oneiricism. Trypanosomiasis. Above all the Odakyū as Rip Van Winkle's train dormitory.

Pulling into Seijogakuen-mae we are boarded, among others, by a boy somewhere close to six or eight years of age. Japanese elementary-school pupil. What other culture would allow a near-infant to travel alone in this way? He looks Lilliputian. A tribute to the assumed safety of Japan, and not least its trains. And then there is the kit. All in navy. Military cap with elastic chin-band. Buttoned to the neck tunic jacket. Long short trousers. Black polished shoes and white socks with small blue garter holding them close to knee-caps (the girls have a special leg-glue which keeps their socks up). Above all there is the identifying satchel on the back, in Japanese the randoseru, as though the child were some miniature Swiss alpinist. Black leather. Rounded. Shiny. Straps over both shoulders. And with an identity tag plus rail-pass hanging from it. A million small children travel home-to-school-to-home with them. Train-line infancy on the Odakyū .

Heading to Gotokuji on the Local. No sooner are we off than a woman faints. Another woman takes hold of her until we reach Shimo-Kitazawa. Then, almost by railway bush telegraph, a platform guard appears and within a trice we have a stretcher.