To the Station

Thursday, September 14th, 2007

3:46pm, Ochanomizu,
Tokyo

Hachifuku – lunch: curry rice with tonkatsu

Woke up: 8:55am

Started work: 10:00am

Finished work: 9:15pm

Weather: Cloudy, raining

 

It’s raining hard today but the rain here is different from home. It’s much finer and it likes to blow sideways thereby drenching everything south of the elbows. I wore my suit today; donned after a summer hiatus. It was just too hot to wear a suit in the summer. On average, summer days were in the mid-thirties and if not scorching, like a blowtorch directed at the groin, were always damp, hot, and humid.

 

From my door to subway station turnstall takes roughly 5 to 13 minutes; the ETA (estimated time of arrival) depending on the briskness of pace, the weight of my bag, the effects of lunar gravitational forces and/or on the “Oh, @#$! I’m late,” factor. As grammatical structure, as compared to English, is somewhat the reversal in Japanese, it may might be said, “I’m late, @#$!, oh” or in the more polite form “As for me, I am late, @#$!-masu, oh, pardon. I suck desu.”

 

On my way to the station, I pondered upon the properties of wool. I was thinking what a wonder fibre it was. Or as they may say in some Nordic regions, ‘Vunder-Bre,’ in short. My suit is made of wool you see, less you think me a polyester suit type of man. Wool can be cool, it can be warm, it is supple, flexible, it springs back to life, it’s quite water-resistant and stain resistant and it’s breathable! Hmm, sounds almost like something you’d want to hang out with over coffee or an evening meal. Sheep on the other hand seem quite dull in comparison but I have yet to research to any depth, the personalities and qualities of sheep.

 

If there are sheepologists reading, please enlighten me.

 

I eventually made it to work, wet suit on body, small, cheap umbrella in hand and with 8 minutes to spare. Today, I was to have a “by 6″ which means 6 straight lessons in a row. Yes folks, that’s 4 and a half non-stop hours of yak-yak.