Are we in London? NO no, but yes a telephone booth caught our attention today and we though to cover this place in … not London, the city with its ubiquitous red colored telephone boxes.
We move closer to the telephone box, some green color item inside and “HIRO” words in the background… any ideas where this is? As we said nooo not London.
Well it is TOKYO, and the area is the Hibiya Line Station Hiroo. The telephone booth is just outside the exit no 1 of the Hiroo Station.
On the inside the telephone equipment is the standard green public telephone box which was very popular in Japan. We say “was” due to the fact that with the proliferation of smartphones, the utility of these public telephones have greatly reduced. What used to be in large numbers outside any stations in Tokyo, these days you can fine maximum of one or two remaining with NTT removing most of the installations.
Hiroo Station is well known location for many expats who live in this area… We are just speculating, but probably it is the number of expats the primary reason why there is this European style telephone box for easy recognition.
You can also see that there is a sign on the back of the telephone box that this one supports international calls too and the sign is also written in English. Indeed for the expat community. The Hiroo area is also known for many embassies in the neighbourhood and we ourselves went there to get our French Visa recently.
See the lamp-post next to the telephone booth and it is also European design. The area just looks so very European with this set up side by side.
A panoramic view around the telephone booth.
The shade of the telephone booth on the pavement near the telephone booth at Hiroo Station.
It’s so difficult to get a snap where someone is making a call since the demand for such booths in a smartphone world has diminished a lot. We decided to stand by ourselves and pose taking a call.
We also saw a unique sign for a dental office Hiroo Go Dental Office with the dentist figure on a broom made by a brush looks so comic. Well thought.
Our trip to London six months back, we were very impressed with the footprint that the red coloured boxes still have in the city of London. You can also see many people using them which is so unlike Japan. Recently many a telephone boxes have also been painted Green to emphasise green-eco-friendly boxes. We took this stereotypical Big Ben in the background and telephone booth in the foreground snap in London.
One more shot of multiple telephone booths just next to the National Museum at the Charing Cross Tube Line Station.