Rush train in December Friday midnight

Tonight I went out to see a talk show hosted by my favorite Japanese jazz player, Naruyoshi Kikuchi in Shibuya (although that wasn’t as good as I expected).

The show finished up around a half past 11pm and that’s early enough for me to get back home by train…by “really crowded” JR Yamate line, the green, loop line in Tokyo.

Basically the midnight Yamate line is always crowded because this line has a lot of transfer stations. Especially Friday night is usually especially terrible because a lot of people drink in Tokyo before going home. Additionally, most Japanese people have year-end drinking parties in December so there's not only regular drunken people but also people who don’t drink normally (amateurs) all surging onto the Yamate line.

So today was one of the most terrible nights to get on the line!!

For half an hour, I was standing in the car and for a lot of the journey. I couldn’t help leaning against people around me and sometimes I was almost squashed when a lot of new passengers came into the car…I can’t avoid this terrible situation as long as I live in Tokyo and as long as I go out in Friday night, as well.