Seijo has become something of a stellar station, still only two platforms but double-tracked on either side. It has a newly minted Mall, four levels. Why? It does not, after all, have interconnecting Lines. There is a university but that would not quite do it. There is the Kurosawa/Toho Studios connection. But the real reason, one has to suspect, is that this is prime Tokyo turf. Prime real-estate.

Seijo exists at the southern edge of Tōkyo-tō – the tō signifying metropolis, right at the border with Kanagawa-ken where Mukōgaoka-yūen and all stations on to Machida and beyond belong. It is full of high-price mansions, veritable trophy housing. So maybe the station has been be-malled to suit. Whatever the explanation it now has a whole phalanx of restaurants, clothes shops, knick-knack places and up-market groceries.

MALL

Four levels. Enter by the street and you have a comprehensive wallwarning: ‘No Smoking, No Open Flame, No Dangerous Goods.’ You also have the Organic Caf e Gris (‘Green Innocence Organic’) and the Albion Caf e (‘Precious Coffee Moments’). To the groundlevel 1F South there is a Starbucks, a kōban, a Trois Gros bakery. To 1F North you have the Hotel de Suzuki for fruits and the Pharmacy Nira. Head up the escalator and one upon another gallery opens to you. 2F has the Hansel and Gretel clothes shop, plus an Italian-style restaurant called Elévé. At 3F and you have access to the Gaba, the English Language School, and Asta Aveda, the toiletries and hairdressing salon. Reach 4F and you are literally at a ceiling of restaurants. Tempura and soba Japanese. Slow Chinese Food (socalled). Another Italian restaurant. A French-style restaurant.

The whole amounts to Seijo as tiered shop and eat parade. A silhouette of Tokyo. With Odakyū trains ever-ready.

And in a nice flourish

Seijo

Mall

gives

you

a

rooftop

olive

tree

garden

with

restaurants

to hand

Eating in

Eating out

Different

Menus

SEIJO TRAIN TIMETABLE

This is something of an electronic beauty. It not only gives all arriving and departing trains as expected. It alternates Japanese with English and in colour-coded interactive design. Worth staring at for itself and never mind the trains.