I often ride by this highway-bus bus stop in Shinjuku, and I always chuckle at the translation – the use of “extraordinary”. For some reason, I can’t help but picture Sherlock Holmes, in his tweed and deerstalker pulling his pipe out of his mouth and exclaiming: “…extraORdinary..!”

Anyway, the whole point of the sign, of course, is that this stop is rarely used, so you shouldn’t bother wasting your time waiting there unless you are absolutely sure that your bus will be stopping there. The real question, of course, is why bother with the stop at all? Why don’t they just get rid of it?

So, I am standing there with my bicycle, deciding that I should finally take a picture of this sign that I pass by all the time; I turn around to get my camera out of my bag and this is what I see…: