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crowded train

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2010.04.23

It finally happened. After four years in this city I've finally been on a train that was so packed it needed pushers.

It happened on the Yamanote line at Ebisu. It was so bad that because I'm taller than the door frame I was bent backwards painfully as countless short Asians packed hemselves in behind me like so many sardines in black woollen suits.

I blame the rain. Transit always gets nutty when there's even the slightest rain.

rand()m quote

It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

—Wendell Berry