Nakano and Koenji are nowhere in the new Tokyo Metro tourist poster

外国人の観光客のために、シンプルな東京メトロの新しい地図ができました。観光客は山手線ばかりを使ってしまいます。中野と高円寺が入っていません。

Tokyo Metro, in one of its first large communication efforts for foreigners, has helpfully simplified Tokyo transit for those ready to go beyond the Yamanote JR loop line and the Sobu-Chuo metro commuter lines. Cool Tokyo, Night Life, Metropolitan Luxury, and Cultural Fusion are newly invented geographies with some suggested destinations.

I am secretly glad not to see Nakano and Koenji on the map. We can be “off the radar. I also wonder how well the tiny interactive Journey Planner works. The initial screen looks like the map threw up on itself in four languages. I guess it’s a start.

s

Come on a tanuki adventure with us at Shibaura House next Tuesday

Please join @a_small_lab and me for a tanuki adventure next Tuesday, July 9, noon to 1 pm, at Shibaura House. Details below. Many thanks to Shibaura House for their support.

SHIBAURA HOUSEに来て、江戸時代から有名なタヌキさんに会いませんか？ 2人の外国人が、タヌキさんをまた東京に呼び戻したいと考えています。東京メトロに乗ってタヌキが友達を作る企画（http://wp.me/piwM0-23e）は、ロンドンのテクノロジー関係の学会で承認されました。スマートフォンがなくても、タヌキさんは友達を作ることが上手です。
今回SHIBAURA HOUSEで開催するイベントでは、こんなことを一緒に考えます：都市に、動物は必要でしょうか。野生で予測できないものは、都市の生活に大事でしょうか。
一緒にちょっと冒険してみましょう。参加費は無料。イベントはランチタイムに開催します、自分のお弁当を持ってきてください。

Please come to Shibaura House to meet the famous tanuki from Edo. Two foreigners want to welcome shape-shifting tanuki back to Tokyo. Their photo story about Making Friends with Tanuki in the Tokyo Metro was selected by a London technology conference for its unusual real-time interaction. How come, even without a smartphone, tanuki is so good at making friends? Why do we need animals in cities? What is the importance of wild and unexpected things in our lives? Please bring an open mind and your own bento. Let’s go on an adventure.

Let’s welcome Tanuki back to Tokyo

タヌキさん、東京にお帰りなさい。「Making Friends（友達を作る）」は、東京メトロで起こった違う種類の生物同士の出会いでした。

Making Friends was a true, inter-species encounter in the Tokyo Metro. Click to enlarge.

Distrust turned to Avoidance, then Curiosity, Connect, Reverse, and Unite. For more on S.C.R.O.T.U.M. see my article with Chris from A Small Lab and Jess from Edoble on This Big City.

What happens after the stations are sealed from the floods?

この東京メトロのポスターとアニメを見ましたか。大きい洪水の場合に、駅を密封します。けれども、出られそうにないです。この後でどうしたらいいのでしょう。イラストもアニメかわいいですが、状況はこわいです。

There are posters in the Metro explaining how prepared they are for floods. There’s an even creepier animation of people moving through Tokyo streets and subway passages, while agents shut the station entrance, air vents are closed, and the tunnels themselves have giant walls to prevent the floods from surging into the station.

I think we’re supposed to feel that the Metro is ready for emergency. Instead, I wonder what type of global warming could cause all that water in the stations. And once we’re all safely sealed inside the stations, then what? Eventually the convenience stores and vending machines will run out! Not to mention the closed air vents.