Where I'd like to be right now...

Yearning for that traditional Japanese Christmas Dinner...The Colonel has you covered.

Men on the Train

Last train to oblivion...

Last night as I boarded the train, a man had decided to spread out and sleep off the night's grog. However, everyone else had been out late, too and everyone just wanted to go home.

Had I woken him up so that some elderly passengers could have a seat beside his disheveled self, would he have given me a gat in the belly? Would he simply and sullenly righted himself, apologized for the trouble, switched trains and let it go? No one will know the outcome, as I looked on with bemusement as everyone else expected someone else do do, erm...something. It's just not right, the collective minds shouted!

I have seen people making out on the train, collective make-up running under the hot fluorescent tube lighting. The passion of the moment horrifies the elderly passengers nearby. This visiting resident was quite amused. Had I been eating a sandwich at the time, my appetite might have diminished.

Lately I have had a shift where, due to timing, compels me to travel home during the Witching Hour- midnight and a half, ish. The state people are in seems odd and playful, when one has not joined them at their company after-work sloshathon. I almost feel like I should join them.

All this merrymaking as the train lumbers on its nightly finale is in extreme contrast to daytime riding, where noise and jovial conversation, are for all intents and purposes, way, way out.

Okay late night commuters! rest your weary souls among the purple and green velvet carriages but do heed the needs of your fellow riders. And please don't do us the disfavor of vomiting. Nobody wants to smell nor clean that up.

Feeling nostalgic? For audio Japanese commuting memories, the site below is for you.

Tokyo JR Jingles

Nationwide Train Jingles

Feeling Poetic?

A journalist feeling clever recently took real, honest audio clips and sliced and diced DR's press conference statements into flowing, beautiful prose.

As seen on Slate.com.

The Poetry

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—

Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

A Confession
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

Happenings
You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.

It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.

Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.

All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

Hub

The vertitable Hub Fish and Chips.

This character is always at the Hub.

These are photos of my neighborhood

A scenic waterfall en route to Mt. Rokko's Rock Garden

My neighbors' shrubbery

A spanish-style home on the list of historic places.
Certainly roomier than what I've got!

Japan always posts handy bilungual Signs for visiting motorists.

In a bad acorn year (such as 2004) you might just encounter Kobe wildlife.

Our corner vending machine provides sanctuary in a PET bottle!

Circular Mirrors warn of kamikaze taxi drivers...

Expect more Mikage neighborhood photos soon.

Happy Holidays!