There’s apparently a running joke in Beunos Aires, Argentina, that if you’re planning on riding the subway’s B Line, you’d better bring a Japanese dictionary. No, Argentines don’t have a bizarre and nonsensical sense of humor; it turns out the country imported the B Line’s trains from Japan and didn’t even bother to change all the Japanese writing.

The B Line trains were sold to a Buenos Aires subway operator in 1994 after Tokyo Metro refitted the Marunouchi Line with new trains. The scrapped cars, despite a modern design and amenities, apparently received a mixed reception to their new home in Argentina.

Traditionally, train cars in Buenos Aires had been fitted with four-person box-style seats, so the Japanese setup of two rows of seven-passenger seats facing each other was jarring, since Argentine commuters suddenly found themselves sharing a more intimate riding experience with strangers next to and across from them.

At first, the train’s interiors were also plastered in Japanese writing, including the helpful map above the door that lists stops; not so helpful, it turns out, when written in an indecipherable language.

Recently, most of the Japanese writing has been replaced on the B Line, but the crew room of each train, at least, still proudly proclaims the car’s Japanese heritage.

Source: Sekai no Arukikata