Omiya Station Post Box

One of the things that baffled me at first arriving in this country was the use of frog images and statues around stations, highway service areas and temples. I soon learned that the Japanese word for frog is the same as their word for return (kaeru). So in order to wish departing travelers a good journey home or a “please come again” many people and places use frogs to symbolize this return.

One must make a minor leap of imagination to find the logic behind this gun metal green post office letter box behemoth at Omiya station though. Can you see the resemblance to a real frog? This frog post box has been here to greet returning commuters welcome home since the stations 120th anniversary in 2005 (the station was founded in 1885 and is the biggest and busiest station in Saitama prefecture served by over 20 different train lines, imagine the size of their marshalling yard!).

In addition to this strangely shaped post box you’ll also have the opportunity to see something even more unusual: a young man using a public pay phone. I remember when there were still long lines of these inside every station in Japan! They even had numbers so that you could request to be called up at them, something I had only seen in movies before.

To the right of the post box is an AED (Automated External Defibrillator), a rather controversial safety device that has popped up just about everywhere around Japan lately. It is said to save lives but there has been little proof of them actually helping so far and they don’t come cheap. Still, they are mandatory in public spaces and even my office building has one on every floor. Although I have seen one man die from a heart attack in a train station here in Japan (before the AEDs were commonplace) I have never seen one of these in use. I should however, read up on how to use them. Just in case.