It’s not such a big deal but I rode the 「山の手線」 (Yamanote Train Line) yesterday and I finally saw a Yamanote Line train that was painted brown and decorated with Meiji Chocolate ads to commemorate the 100th anniversary of both the Yamanote Line and Meiji Chocolate.
I wrote a post about these special trains when they debuted (click here to see it).
I was glad that I was finally able to see one of these trains because they will only run until next Friday (2009 December 4)!
Unfortunately though, I didn’t have my camera with me…so I was only able to take a photo of it with my cell-phone.
Here’s the photo I took:


Why will the trains only run until next Friday?
Is it because of the advertisement only running for a limited time?
Yes, that’s right. It’s basically a big ad for Meiji Chocolate.
Oh no, two more days left – I haven’t seen or ridden this yet (maybe I don’t ride the Yamanote Line often enough).
I guess I’ll just have to eat a Meiji chocolate bar instead
I don’t eat much junk food…but I’ll recommend the bitter chocolate.
Yes! I rode it too, even though I hardly ever use the Yamanote Line. If I had known it was a rare occasion, I would have reached for my camera too.
Yeah, you should’ve taken a photo because this special Yamanote Line train ran only until last week.
I rode on one of these quite a while ago. I knew about them, but I was surprised when I saw one come into the station.
It couldn’t have been that long ago.
They only ran this brown train from last September until last week.
September was quite a while ago
It feels that way.
I saw on your blog that you’ve been in Japan since 2005.
How long do you plan to stay in Japan?
At the moment, I have no plans to leave Japan, except for overseas holidays. Enjoying life here too much.
How often do you go overseas?
I’ve only visited America a couple times in nearly twenty years. It’s too expensive…especially for five people!
Once a year only. That’s to Canada. It is expensive, but I live alone and I can afford it.
Once a year? When? X-mas?
Yeah, at Christmas. It’s awfully cold when I go there.
Tokyo winter is cold enough for me…
I guess you’re going back to Canada soon then.
I’ll be going on Sunday and back 2 weeks later.
Have a good time!
How long is the flight? Thirteen hours?
Thanks. It’ll be about 10 hours to Canada, a short layover, then a 1 3/4 hour flight. On the way back to Japan, it’ll be 13 hours.
Yeah, I remember…I flew back to the east coast of America a couple times and it took about that long.