Leah Aki Wood ‘16, JFOU Fellow

My grandparents met on the train from Kyushu to Tokyo and started dating as they went to school here. I often go to a park called Inokashira Koen in Kichijoji, one of their date spots, and am thankful that there were no cellphones back in the day because if there had been, it’s likely neither of them would have looked up on the train, and therefore likely that my mother would never have been born.

Leah Aki Wood ‘16, JFOU Fellow

Another day I met a friend at Shibuya Station, another main station famous for its busy pedestrian crossing or “scramble” (it took about one hour and fifteen minutes, and this trip had a train transfer). I started taking koto lessons (a one hour trip, three transfers), taiko lessons (a two hour trip, three transfers), and seeing a therapist (a one and a half hour trip, three transfers). I felt like I was going crazy.