Train...something wrong...

Today at 17:50, at the station, the line between Kobe and Sannomiya was interrupted. The cause, was said as being "Invasion of Track" which might mean many things.

I've heard stories that sometimes people jump under the train...but today, fortunately the cause might appear to be different. I thing somebody threw stuff on the tracks or something, but i don't know exactly.

This caused a general concern, as people couldn't get home. The interesting thing, is that if this would happen in the morning, people would be late for work. In Europe, if this would be the case, people would get late to work, eventually give a phone call and everything would be fine.

In Japan, since people need to give a reason why they are late, is not uncommon to go to the station manager and get a paper confirming the delay so they can then bring it to work.

In Japan there are really nice things, but the paperwork and sometimes the procedures are tedious and generate a great amount of work.

By the way...last week, i was late to the lesson 3 minutes (Exactly 3!!). I couldn't get to the class, i was stopped by the school master that asked me to proceed to the school counter and fill in the being-late form.

I had to fill-in name, delay in minutes - which by the time i couldn't understand and the delay now became already 5 or 6 minutes - and give a reason for it. Now guess what. As a reason I put "Late". At which point the receptionist looked at me puzzled. "late?" she said. "is this a reason?". "Well, i'm just...late. That's the reason."... she was not convinced, maybe expecting me to build up a whole story like "the cat ate my homework", "a snow storm made my shoes wet" . They just couldn't face the truth...that someone can be late... just for no particular reason. It just happens !

In addition to the explaination, i had to fill-in the paper twice. I didn't know why (!!) so, once i filled in the second copy, she signed both of them and kept one. The other one was given to me. I thought: "what am i going to do with the second one?" and since now, after doing all this, i was late 10 minutes, i just transformed it in a paper ball and tossed it in my pocket.

Imagine what...when i've entered the class, i was asked by the teacher why i was 10 minutes late (which actually were just 3!!) and...i was asked for the copy of the late form ( ups!). Imagine her face when i had to pick up the crashed paper ball out of my pocket and try to give it a reasonable look ...

Well, let's see the bright side... at least, i found out why I had to fill-it-in twice... ;)