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In July 2015, I was based in Japan and had been spending most of my time working in Tokyo. While Tokyo is a spectacular city, it is the epitome of a concrete jungle and so an invitation by a colleague to visit the southern Japanese island of Kyushu seemed like the opportune time to experience some of Japan’s green spaces. The train ride from Tokyo to the main city in Kyushu, Fukuoka, is 1,100 km and takes six hours to complete. The route traverses the populated south coast of Japan that, as was evident from my journey to Fukuoka, is dominated by a strip of major urban settlements. The views from the train’s window were fleeting glimpses of urban Japan interspersed with ‘blackouts’ as the train rapidly entered and exited numerous tunnels. The experience was like looking through a kaleidoscope with a bewildering array of ‘quick-fire’glimpses of buildings and urban infrastructure. There were rare sights of green …