What can we determine about a society from a train window? Travelling through Japan on its wonderful high speed rail system I was interested in how the passing scenes of towns, villages and fields seemed familiar yet different. These images, taken on my iPhone held to the glass, show different styles of land use, vernacular architecure and cities. The textures of the skyline, steep wooded hillsides, the power lines and crops combined with the distortion caused by speed and the colour cast from the tinted windows make for interesting images.