Monday, November 12, 2012

What's with all the crazies?

So how was everyone's weekend? Mine was busy, but in a great way. I had work, dinner and drinks, then more work and got a chance to see some old friends visiting Japan (congratulations again, M and S; I wish you both all the best). It was long and ended up costing more that I would've thought but that's life in Japan.

Drowsily riding back the long train ride home after a night out, there are few things you can be certain of. Will the train make it back without having a delay? Will you be able to get a seat, and if you do will you be able to ride the whole way home without having a crazy drunk sit down next to you?

So with that line of thought, I'd like to present today a top 10 5 list. I've seen a lot of crazy shit on trains here. I would imagine someone living in New York might be able to top me big time, but Japan has its own blend of wacky that's hard to top at times. This isn't exactly a best of list, because I know two seconds after I post this I'll think of 5 even better events, so here goes in no particular order.

5 crazy things I've seen on the train (or in stations) in Japan

  1. Dead people. Gotta get this one out of the way. I won't go into details or it'll ruin the rest of the post, but it was pretty scary to see someone like that in the middle of a station.
  2. Slippery drunk guy. I saw a businessman in full dress attire asleep on a train slowly slide down until only his head was on the bench. Cue the girls sitting next to me with their cellphone cameras clicking off pics.
  3. Stinky crap guy. OK this has happened a few times. Sitting on a train in Tokyo sometimes you are the proud recipient of a whiff of pure ass. And I'm not talking a nasty fart. When your nose pinpoints the smell it is almost always the guy who's sitting next to you close enough that you feel like weeping under the shower for 30 minutes after the ordeal is over.
  4. Happy nerd gets his dream come true. Riding in to Akihabara to do some shopping, I saw what looked like a trailer to every otaku's wet dream: a dorky but nice looking guy with backpack on his lap trying to read a Naruto comic has a woman of almost model-like beauty asleep next to him. At first he's obviously bothered by her head constantly bumping into his shoulder but when you see him glance left to see who the hell is being so annoying you can almost see the drool appear when he realizes how gorgeous she is.
  5. Happy possible serial killer. Now this was just creepy. I'm riding home in the morning after pulling an all-nighter and realize to my horror there's a guy who looks astonishingly like the icky stalker in Perfect Blue standing in front of me, staring at me with a smile on his face (here's a trailer for the movie, check for him at 0.35s). Imagine my bigger shock when I realized a few days later he lived in the apartment under mine. Yes, I know my lack of sleep probably exaggerated everything but it was still freaky.
So how about you, my dear readers? What crazy stuff have you seen on trains here (or anywhere)?

No comments:

Post a Comment