Chapter 832: Bus in Shinjuku Gave Me Reverse Culture Shock

You’re probably thinking, what the hell am I on about? I spent all my time travelling around Japan and avoided Tokyo until I decided to go on a tour that will enable me to goto the Ghibli Museum. I woke up that morning, waited for the bus at the stop just outside the hotel. When the bus came…The driver opened the front doors and my body froze. I looked at the back doors and it read Exit. I quickly went on to avoid blocking the people behind me.

When you’re in Japan you’d probably be used to the idea of going on the back of the bus and exit through front. If you have an IC card you will tap it upon entering the back doors, when you get off you tap it once more. Or, you will take a ticket with a number printed, when you leave to the front you drop the ticket and coins into the see through box.

But no, this was like the buses back home, go on through the front and tap your IC Card once only. I spent so much time in other areas of Japan, mainly the country side that I become accustomed to what I thought was normal. Damn, I was thinking ‘What just happened?’ haha. My brain just farted and couldn’t process the situation. When I sent this photo to my Japanese friend who is from Kobe, he also commented saying this was strange and that he’s never boarded a bus in Japan from the front before.

—Tofu