Fantastic bicycle pit stop at Little Nap Coffee Stand

自転車を乗っているときに、代々木公園の隣にあるLittle Nap Coffee Stand でよく充電します。おしゃれな僕のサービスステーションです。

Yoyogi Park is my preferred route to get anywhere in Tokyo by bike. Little Nap Coffee Stand next to the park is always a great place to re-charge. Closed Mondays.

Shiny new Zen rock garden in highway rest stop. Bad taste unites the world.

改装したサービスステーションの中に、「禅」という岩石庭園があります。円形の芝生はちょっとおかしいですね。趣味の悪い物が世界をつなげています。

This highway rest stop outside Tokyo has apparently just remodeled. There’s a new stand-alone Starbucks, and a shiny mall environment with lots of food items for gifts, plus prepared foods for travelers. In the center of this temple of commerce sits a faux Zen garden, with raked pebbles, unusual stones, and, most oddly, circles of artificial lawn. I guess the designer thought they needed a splash of color.

Highway rest stop cherry blossoms. Unlike US, Japanese rest stops are immaculate.

きれいな桜がサービスステーションにあります。日本のは米国のより全然違います。

I love this elegant cherry tree in bloom at a highway rest stop. In the background, you can see a row of cherry trees lining the highway. I am rarely a car passenger in Japan, but I was my in-laws on a day trip last weekend.

In the United States, highway rest stops have a bad reputation: dirty, few food options, insufficient toilets, and an atmosphere of decrepitude and crime. In Japan, they are immaculate, constantly renovated, over-supplied with clean toilets, food options that rival a large mall, and endless rows of souvenir edible gifts for people you will visit or for friends and family back home.