Suburbia

To give you an idea of how small the area where I am is.
There is only one track running to the train station closest to me (the Iyotetsu line, Iyo being the old name for Ehime). I couldn't figure out how that worked for a while. I just thought the trains going the other way must lead to station located somewhere else, until I realized that trains going in both directions ran on the same track. The trains run so infrequently that they just have a few stations with two tracks and the trains must wait at those key point stations for the ones coming from the opposite direction to pass before they go. During the rush hour periods, the trains run every 15 minutes or so, in the early morning and late evenings every 30 minutes...

edit: it's actually the yokogawa line of the iyotetsu company. which runs all of two maybe three lines.

The trains are also only about two or three cars long and late at night, when there is no longer anybody manning the stations the conductor has to get out of his little conducting booth and collect tickets from alighting passengers. When the station exit is on the opposite end of what it was at the previous stop, it's quite funny to see him walk quite rapidly as soon as the train is in motion from one end to the other so that he can get off as soon as the train doors open to collect tickets. Not because people will run out on the train fare, I think, but to prevent people from having to wait...(There are other ways to evade the train fare if you really wanted to).

There are also various payment systems involving the honor code, that wouldn't fly in the U.S. but I'll leave that for another day.

I have been in the office for a few days now...and for the past two, have been a silent witness to the comings and goings of the head of the Medical Education Department here. Both the office assistant and the professor's fathers passed away recently. As a result, there has been a steady stream of visitors, mostly colleagues I think, who have come to offer their condolences, mostly to the professor. Each time, using almost the same words, in a calm manner, he describes how unexpected it was and always ends with, I do not think that he suffered much, to describe his father's passing away.

These visits are so strange to me. The formality and rigidity, the man's father just passed away and he has to repeat ad nauseum the circumstances surrounding his father's death to every single person who comes in to see him. One might think that he would rather not talk about it over and over again, but these people come, sit down, and he recites his speech.

First Real Day

Why do people see fit to blast the same SAME Japanese pop song over and over again at 8 in the morning? What happened to Japanese consideration for their neighbors? This better not be the high school across the way. Now some band group is practicing...I hear clarinets warming up. Lovely.