As I stood wedged between three salarymen, a short old lady clutching onto her purse for dear life, and two young girls jabbering away with their keitai flipped open, I looked out the window of the train. We were stopped at a station headed out of the city, back towards Higashi Tokorozawa. A train pulled up alongside us, headed into the city. A few gentlemen stood up, smiling, and two or three empty seats dotted the car. Staring longingly at their car, I just knew they were looking into ours thinking "Thank the Lord I'm not on that train." It was then that our train lurched forward again and the three salarymen, the short old lady, and the two young girls and I were tossed around like a salad, but with less room to breathe. By the time we all settled into the movement of the train, our sumimasen's uttered, we were all in different positions, facing new passengers, with scenery to view.
Such is riding the train at 9:30 on a Wednesday night. Each of my Wednesday nights look like this, some worse--very few better. At 9:30 on a Wednesday night, the working men are on their way home from drinking with their colleagues and the trains become crammed. Crammed is not a strong enough word. People flood onto the trains until you think no one else can fit---and then six more people board.
The stations, too, are a nightmare. A sea of white button-down shirts and black slacks descends upon the ticket wicket and briefcases go flying outward as their owners run to make their transfers. There are people. Everywhere. The closest parallel I can make from the States is Black Friday's WalMart opening. Remember when the employee was trampled? This is an ekiduring rush hour in Tokyo.
It's an experience to say the least. And does not diminish one bit my love for the trains.
Yesterday afternoon I went out to lunch with two of my students, Fumiko and Mutsuko, from my morning class at Chuo. Mutsuko (see pictures in previous post) knew a small restaurant hidden in a garden off the road just a few minutes from the church. It was the type of place that doesn't exist anymore in the States--a small home with four or five tables. All of the customers are known by the staff and you can talk with them, the staff, through an open window into the kitchen as they prepare your food. There's a small room at the other end of the house with a huge window where the old lady who owns the house makes the soba and udon noodles. After the "lunch rush" yesterday, we sat with the old lady and learned how to make udon. It was a fantastically good time.
What's better is that the house is situated in a garden, the likes of which are unique to Japan. It's haphazard and seemingly disorganized. Flowers and plants of all times grow out over the path in mishmosh patterns. It's one huge, beautiful mass of herbage. There are two paths leading to the house, one from a small, gravel parking lot, the other from a walking path that runs along the Tamagawajosui. After we left the house, the three of us walked along the small stream. The path itself is terribly long, requiring days to traverse it in its entirety. The best word to describe it would be rustic: an uneven dirt path lined with wood fences. Trees jut up in the middle of the path and you're forced to step around and dodge thick roots that spring up from the ground. It was a very pleasant afternoon.
As my classes begin to come to an end, my schedule is filling up. This week alone I'll be going to dinner at two different students' homes, and I have two parties planned. Students who have been inviting me to go with them different places or to come to their homes all semester and realizing that they need to set a date ASAP and so, I'm booked! What a wonderful blessing. I have much to look forward to when I get home, but I have so much yet to look forward to before I leave here.
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