Wise Woman Travel

Today, a traveler arriving at  Tokyo’s Shibuya Station is greeted by the sight of towering ad screens and the noteworthy Shibuya scramble, where thousands of pedestrians cross the intersection from all directions at the same time. Now that I know the story of Professor Eizaburo Ueno and his Akita dog Hachiko, I wonder what the station looked like when the two visited the station together every day in the early 1920s.

Every morning, Hachiko would accompany his master to the station as the professor  headed off to work at Tokyo’s Imperial University. And each afternoon, Hachiko would trot down to meet the train when the Professor came home.

Then, one day in 1925, Professor Ueno died at work from a cerebral hemorrhage. But Hachiko continued to wait for Ueno at the station every day until his own death 10 years later. Ueno and Hachiko are buried together in a Tokyo cemetery.

The Japanese, great admirers of fidelity and family loyalty, encourage their children to follow Hachiko’s example. Today, children of all ages from around the world line up to take photos with the dog’s statue where he once waited patiently for his human to come home.