having a quick lunch at the Kyoto Station platform while waiting for the Shinkansen (bullet train) headed for Tokyo -

I love how in Japan you’re allowed to eat in trains and subways. The government simply trusts its people to keep everything tidy, enough to give them such liberties. And their trust is well-placed. Even public toilets are pristine, nobody would do anything that would inconvenience or disadvantage someone else, people understand why they must do right by each other. Simple enough, right? Yet so many of us still can’t grasp the mentality. Their culture has just reached such a high level of civilization I can only marvel at it.