boy rides bullet train alone from Nagano to Tokyo A 5-year-old boy ran away from his grandmother at a supermarket in Nagano Prefecture and rode a shinkansen bullet train alone to Tokyo, police said.
The boy was playing at an amusement section in a supermarket in front of JR Sakudaira Station in Saku on Monday afternoon but disappeared after his grandmother warned him not to spend too much money.
Fearing the boy from Komoro had been kidnapped, a staggering 1,000 police, government and firefighting officials searched the prefecture.
The boy was found in Tokyo's Shinkuku by a woman on an Oedo Line subway train on early Tuesday morning, Tokyo police said.
The woman thought that it was strange for a little boy to be alone on the subway train after midnight, and alerted a station employee at Shinjuku Station.
Police officers took the boy into custody and he told them, "I came here alone on a bullet train."
The boy had something to eat and a sleep before informing police of his name.
Police officers learned that he was the boy Nagano police were looking for, and informed them he was in Tokyo.
When his mother came from Nagano to Shinjuku Station, the boy tearfully hugged her, police said.
The boy had previously come from Nagano to Tokyo on bullet trains three times, and had always been accompanied by his mother or grandmother. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Jan. 5, 2005)
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