Crazy Train Ride.....

20th March, 2007

Due to the fact that we left Universal Studios so late, we had to catch the last train home. We ended up catching an 11:40pm train. Now we had not eaten dinner because we had been so rushed trying to fit all the rides in before the park closed that we just didn’t get time, then we had to make sure that we caught the last train so there was no time to eat. Lauren bought some drinks and snacks for us to eat on the train on the way home so we didn’t waste away! ☺

You would think that being so late at night we would have pretty much had the train to ourselves. Our theory was that we would get 2 lots of four seats so that we could spread out and eat our snacks in peace and relax. Well we were wrong, wrong WRONG!! This train was the busiest train that we had ever been on. We couldn’t even get ‘a’ seat let alone 2 lots of four. This was some crazy stuff. As soon as the train came we were crammed in. Jam packed like sardines. You couldn’t even move and people were still trying to get on. We had all our luggage too so people had to deal with that. As the train started moving sometimes it would turn suddenly and everyone would lose their balance. People were falling into each other everywhere. Some man ended up holding Marie’s bag without even wanting to because of the way we were positioned. When the first stop came some people wanted to get off of course. We didn’t need to get off so we stayed put. Marie was forced to follow that man to get her bag back. There was no sumimasen (excuse me) or anything like that people just pushed their way off. You had no choice but to get off with them. We didn’t want to get off so we were trying to stay on but that didn’t happen. We were forced out of the train. Renee (Lauren’s friend from Australia) actually fell over because people were pushing and shoving and she lost her balance. It was like a herd of people seriously. Some serious damage could happen here. It was hilarious. Then I saw this poor little kid crying because there was such a commotion going on and he needed to get off. His mum grabbed him and pulled him off the train. I think we just had no idea of what the protocol was when the train was in such a busy state. We managed to get back on the train again before the doors closed shut but we lost it. We could not stop laughing. Now when you are on a train or a bus or any type of public transport, it is meant to be a quiet place. It is kind of like a courtesy thing. We were behaving like teenagers – giggling and carrying on. We couldn’t stop for ages. People were getting quite annoyed at us. We were the only ones laughing, everyone else was quiet and serious. Didn’t they think it was funny too?
It is hard to imagine how packed it actually was but it was out of control, I have never experienced anything like it. If it was this bad in just Osaka, imagine how it is going to be in Tokyo…..