And then I found myself accosted by a gang of fourteen year old girls...

In Japan if a kid is old enough to walk he's old enough to take the train to school by himself. Every day during my commute I see tons of the groups of kids of all ages making their way to school. Of course because this is Japan every single one of them is impeccably behaved. There is no shouting, if they talk its usually in hushed whispers to one another.

Seriously, everyone on the trains is incredibly respectful, no one talks on their cellphone, no one yells, even wasted salarymen seem to pull themselves together before getting on the train.

So it was a little strange this morning when I was standing on the train on my way to work when I looked over and found a group of 10 or so 14 year old girls laughing at me. I tried to ignore them, but they keep giggling to themselves. Eventually one of them waves at me and tells me in Japanese to look up. It turns out I'm standing under this

See the resemblance

To these girls this was very, very funny.

In case I didn't get it they said

"onaji kao" or "same face" followed by more laughing

I responded with

"wakarimashita" or "gotcha"

Then I found myself facing a barrage of questions from the whole group

Where are you from?

Where are you going?

How old are you?

What's your name?

Do you have a girlfriend?

I do my best to field the questions with my kindergarden level Japanese. Fortunately I'm saved by my stop before I'm totally overwhelmed.