Public telephones
There are still public telephones (“koushuu denwa”) in Japan - and in good working order, too. They accept either cash or pre-paid cards. There is still a law in Japan that demands at least one public telephone within a certain distance of every train and subway station in the country. So, although public phone numbers are way, way down from what they were before the advent of cell phones (and then smartphones), there are still some around. On Wednesday, February 1, 2023 I saw this one looking lonely and forsaken by one of the exists of the Shin-nakano Subway Station on the Marunouchi Line. I thought, “Hey, little guy, I don’t forsake you!”