Gotta love getting to work in Japan. To be honest, my journey isn’t too bad, because I live near the end of the line, which ensures that I always get a seat. It helps that I live in Osaka rather than Tokyo, too. Seen those guys on TV, employed to push the commuters into the train? We don’t have them here. It still falls far short of being a barrel of laughs, mind you.

I have to change trains at Awaji, and I usually take the express train. It’s a bit crowded and I have to stand up, but it’s much faster so I only have to stand for a short time. It saves me about fifteen minutes of valuable sleeping time.

Today, however, I couldn’t get on the express train. There was no space left at all. I don’t know why there were so many people; maybe there was some special event. It’s the same train that I took daily in my last job, with no problems. But today, I just couldn’t get on. I gave up, sat on the seats on the platform, and waited for the next train.

So I was five minutes late. I called ahead to say that I was late. I know, it’s not great on my second day at work, but...oh well. Shit happens.