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low tunnel

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2009.10.02

There's a tunnel that passes beneath the wide set of sidings near Shinagawa train station. I'd say it's about 250m wide, and nowhere near 2m tall. Here's what the entrance looks like.

low tunnel

And here's what I look like trying to stand in the tunnel.

crouching in a low tunnel

My family, admiring the passing trains from a (very) close vantage point.

trains passing over a low, low tunnel

I don't know why this tunnel was so badly needed that they left it in there when building the tracks above, but it's a menace. The taxis that use the thing just barely pass beneath the lowest parts of the ceiling, the little globe on a taxi's roof missing that ceiling by centimeters.

rand()m quote

It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

—Anne Frank