Ekiben

A Yokohama rooster with white plumage, red-brown shoulders and a very long flowing white tail in a moss-green corduroy jacket, standing on a blue upholstered window seat of a Japanese bullet train, a lunch box wrapped in an indigo cloth and a white paper cup on the fold-down tray beside him, green rice fields and misty hills passing the rain-spotted window

Somewhere Past Odawara

Five days off in a row, which the calendar allows about once a decade, and every seat on the line is spoken for. His is by the window, booked in August, and the first hundred kilometres pass in deciding when to untie lunch.

19 September 2026