The Marunouchi area sits between Tokyo Station and the
Imperial Palace. It is the financial center
of Tokyo. It is also the premium shopping area for the affluent. Practically all buildings in the area are skyscrapers. The street level shops are boutiques of big
name Japanese and foreign fashion designers.
The interconnected basements of these buildings have many small
restaurants catering to office workers.
One day I happened to be at the basement of the Marunouchi
Building. There I found a unique shop of
the Subway Sandwich chain. It was
growing its own lettuce in an enclosed hydroponic “Subway yasai lab” (yasai is
Japanese for vegetable). To me that was
an interesting concept. Even though the “yasai
lab” could hardly produce enough lettuce, it supported the advertising slogan “Eat
Fresh at Subway”.
Apparently I was the only person who had any interest. From the picture, you can see that people eating
lunch at the counter paid no attention to the “lab” at all. I found out later that the”lab” was installed
two years earlier in 2010. Its novelty must have worn off long ago.
