EXSQUEEZE ME!

It's February already. Dang. Already a month in the new year has passed. It hasn't really sunk in that it's 2004 yet.

Yesterday morning was interesting--it rained in the morning, which caused delays on the lcoal commuter trains. By the time I got to the station, Aaron was still on the platform, and he leaves a half hour before I do. The platform was loaded with folks, and the incoming trains were so packed, you could barely get on. So it seemed like we were going to be a little late for work. The cool thing is, in Japan, if the commuter trains are late (which they rarely are) the rail company issues "late passes" to working commuters to take to their office to "excuse their tardiness" so to speak. It's kinda neat, and I got one when I finally reached the station near school, although it turned out that I didn't really need beacause I got to school at about my usual time, afterall. So I guess that'll just be a keepsake item.

However, the thing that killed me yesterday morning was the train etiquette, rather lack thereof, of the jam-packed commuters when the trains were overloaded. Like, everybody was stuffing their bodies only into the spaces near the doors, in fultile attempts to get off the train faster at their destinations, meanwhile the aisles were almost completely clear. This kinda pissed me off, because people were having a hard enough time trying to sardine-pack themselves onto the trains, and then because everyone wanted to pack around the doors, some other people couldn't get on, including myself--I'd never seen anything like it, but the people weren't polite or thoughtful enough to smush themselves into the aisles to allow for more space. Everyone just crowded themselves around the doors to jockey for exit position. I found this behavior to be pretty ignorant, and it actually made the trains more late, because it took them 3-4 minutes to get everyone on the trains safely.

When I had to transfer to my second train, it was so packed by the door, there was no space, and I was considering shoving some people so I could get on. But I decided to be a peaceful little foreigner, and just walked down to the next door where I enter the train sideways to jimmy my self into one last nook of space. If my mood had been any different, people woulda got pushed into those aisles. Yeah, people would have been salty, but nobody would have said a word, because they knew they were wrong for blocking up the doorway in the first place. Anyway...