Catching the local train from Gora to Hakone Yumoto. We pull up at a tiny station and the doors open, and there is this amazing shrine cut right into the face of the rock right outside the door. Complete with stone dragon and steps leading up into the murky darkness. I mean you could reach out and touch it.

But no one on the car even looks up. They are all snoozing, or reading or scrolling far more amazing things than an ancient (ok I have no idea how old it is, but it looks ancient, and I’m going to roll with that)shrine springing in through the carriage door.

We sat there for a while. Nobody seemed get off. Nobody looked up. I pulled my camera out of my satchel and took this pic just as the doors closed.

And we were gone. Or, rather it was gone.

On reflection I am pretty sure that as we stopped, there was a some sort of rip in the fabric of the space-time continuum and the door of carriage 9 became a portal to another world. Yep. That is the only parsimonious explanation.

Mind the step.