Another one of those nights where I slept just for a short bit, then woke up and couldn't get back to sleep... so I thought I'd toss some text I wrote on the train system back in November 2022 into a blog post (with pictures from the year 2000):
20221110 (木) AM - Morning commute. This morning there seem to be fewer leering tourists (and others) about, which is a relief. The more time goes by, the more I hate tourism. All those flying metallic tubes inexpensively carrying people here and there to places they visit for nearly purely frivolous reasons. I guess there was a rush of out-of-their-element bipeds to see the fall colors? Or maybe news of higher rates of the forevermore virus are helping keep them away? Before the pandemic, there were so many tourists about that they made it difficult to walk down sidewalks at times and so when the flood of them was stopped by the pandemic, there was a feeling of the city belonging to its residents again. But now the tourists are coming back....
Last week, as I sat on a similar morning train, there were an obnoxious couple sitting opposite me... this morning is a rather pleasant radio waves couple. Just the ebb and flow of life on earth. Ah! A rather striking view of a nearly full or maybe full moon shining majestically in the pale blue morning sky. Can't see the moon in the daytime? Yes, you can - at times.
Back to the tourists though - the atmosphere is so much nicer when they are not about. Xenophobic of me? No - just a dislike of obnoxious people disrespectfully tramping about leering at the world as though they were superior beings or something. So nice not to have such nasty creatures about. Certainly there are exceptions, and I noticed some nice looking people about from other lands. Welcome to them of course.
The train announcements on the train I'm on are unbelievably loud right now. They are painful to the ears. Always nice to torment the passengers I guess.
Coughing passenger - move to another carriage. You can't use public transportation without being exposed to various things, but when someone has a very obvious and congested cough, it's something to get away from if possible.
The announcements... there is a reason (good or bad) for everything, so I do wonder why announcements at ear damaging levels are made by many (most?) of the railways on some (most?) of the trains. The only really practical reason I can think of is that they are made as an anti-loitering measure. They are loud enough to wake the dead buried on distant planets, so they must help get sleepers off the trains at the correct stops and also prevent campers from riding the trains as shelter instead of transportation. The volume varies from line to line... some are very reasonable, and some are shockingly loud. (All of the pictures in this post were taken on May 12th, 2000.)
- Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon - www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/ - youtube.com/lylehsaxon - lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
