Things that make you go, "Hmmm, really?"

In the midst of a disastrous power outage in Tokyo, there is one aspect of the story that should be broken off into its own Geraldo investigative special.

If you scroll down to the bottom of that story, in the last graph there's a little tidbit that should catch your attention...

"Some Tokyo subway lines temporarily allowed men to ride in special "women-only" cars to ease crowding after service resumed. The special cars were introduced to spare women the aggravation of harassment from male passengers."

Wait. Huh?

There are women only subway cars in Tokyo? I lived with a Japanese man for 10 weeks. If there was any potential harassment it was buried under a mountain of repressed sexual urges and self-imposed guilt. Hiroki was so polite he actually sprinted from the door to the desk so as to not break my view of Maury each weekday at 4 pm. And these people are harrassing women on subway cars?

Apparently they serve Sake and have karaoke on the tube in Japan. Apparently.

Tokyo suffers rush-hour power cut (Reuters via CNN)