Dann Schroader:
CLASS OF 1969
Newport High SchoolClass of 1969
Bellevue, WA
Dann's Story
The Kowa Rapture January 20, 2009
I'm on a six month assignment in Nagoya Japan. Living in Japan is interesting and challenging.
Today was one of those days. There was nothing to mark that it would be special in anyway. I woke about 4:20 and got up to turn on the water heater. It's one of the features here. I can turn it on or off any time. Its gas operated so I save on utility bills by turning it off when I leave for work or go to bed.
After I turned it off I went back to bed until the alarm went off which was a local FM station playing some 70's song I don't remember right now but it was a relatively gentle wake up - again. I got ready for work and did my normal mile walk down to the rail station.
I was sitting on the bench feeling a little sleepy which I found odd because I'd actually gotten a good night sleep. When Roy and Joe showed up for our train I made a remark about it to Joe.
After a few minutes the 6:35 to Kowa, with my stop at Chita Handa, showed up and we made our mini mad dash for open seats. I found one just in front of the middle doors all to myself. The seats are warmed during this cold season so I snuggled against the side of the train and stretched my legs out. By making me a little wider than my seat it sort of discourages people from sitting in the empty isle seat. Besides there were plenty of other open seats. I also closed my eyes to feign sleeping. This also discourages people from sitting next to you and makes for a much more comfortable ride.
I heard the PA say we were coming to Kanayama station. I kept my eyes closed as we stopped and all the time the doors were open. No one sat next to me. I looked around as we were leaving Kanayama and the car was mostly full with a lot of the seats taken. But mine still allowed me room to stretch out and relax.
Train seats are narrow on Japanese trains because the average Japanese man and woman have little butts! The standard seat isn't quite enough for the average American butt. It's down right uncomfortable when 2 of us have to sit side by side. It's definitely "close".
Anyway, I closed my eyes after a few minutes and soon heard Jingumai station coming up. I pulled my same sleeping act and was rewarded with the maintenance of my personal space. I know, selfish of me.
Gosh my seat was nice and toasty warm. I closed my eyes again as this was the longest stretch between stops and I knew we wouldn't get to Otagawa for at least another 10 or 12 minutes.
I sat there for a few minutes listening to the clickity clack, clickity clack of the train running its' rhythm against the rails. I casually opened my eyes to look out at the dawn. I blinked without comprehension. All of the people in my car in front of me were gone! How could that e? I had only closed them a moment ago!
I quickly looked behind me and there was no one there. I stood up and looked forward into the next car. Again absolutely no one in sight. I felt a brief but definite moment of panic.
Was I the only sinner left in Nagoya? Had the rapture come and I was left behind? So God really does know what he's doing?!?!
Quickly it dawned on me that I hadn't closed my eyes for "just" a few moments. I had fallen fully asleep and at least everyone in the last two cars had gotten off at Chita Handa and Otagawa without me! My friends had left me behind and I was still just one sinner in the multitude of other sinners in Nagoya.
I noticed a train conductor in the very back of the train in his compartment. I walked back and tapped lightly on the window. He turned around and opened the door to his compartment. I said, ¿Chita Handa?" and pointed back down the tracks in the opposite direction the train was traveling.
He smiled and said, "Hai!" then placed one hand against his cheek and laid his head over to that side with a smile and an inquisitive look on his face. All I could do was smile a chagrinned smile and say, "Hai." But not with as much enthusiasm as he had.
He started jabbering in Japanese, pointed at his watch which showed 7:18, then pointed to the 7:45 area of his watch and held up three fingers. I nodded but really didn't know if he was telling me three more stops until 7:45, to politely screw myself (but not giving me the unvarnished finger) or what ever else it could mean.
I went back to the middle of the car and kept standing. There was no way I was going to sit down again and risk falling asleep. The train started to slow down so I figured I get off at this stop. But the train didn't stop and we inched slowly through some small station. We did this a couple of more times.
In the mean time I noticed that we had gone from two or three tracks side by side to just the one we were on. The scenery was different too, much more rural, no apartment building just single family dwellings and almost all with traditional roof lines.
Finally we were slowing again and I figured we would run on through this stop. But no, we were finally going to stop. Yeah! I could get off and try to figure how to get back to Chita Handa. The last car was at the very end of the platform and as I peeked out of the car door I saw that we were literally at the...Expand for more
end of the line. The tracks ended at the Kowa train station building.
I sheepishly left the car but didn't want to go too far since this was the only train at this station. Looking back up the tracks the way we had just come I could see that just before the station the tracks had split into four lines into the station. So I wondered when this train was going to leave and where it would be stopping. It had been a limited Express which is the type that makes the fewest stops, skipping over most stations.
I was thinking I needed to find some one to help me but there were very few people there and most of them had left the front cars and headed into the station. A few school kids in the navy blue military / catholic school style uniforms were coming onto the platform. About the time I was planning on going into the station to try to communicate with the station master (who I was sure was going to look at me like some kind of gaijin bug), the train conductor I had "talked" to tapped me lightly on my shoulder.
I turned and he was smiling at me, pointed to the number 3 platform and tapped his watch again. I looked at the reader board that said something in Japanese with 7:31 next to it and a small "local" in English under that. I used international sign language of holding up 7 fingers followed by 3 and then 1, pointing at the reader board with the most inquisitive face I could muster.
The conductor gave me a big broad smile and said, "Hai!" So now I knew what train to take. I didn't want to consider the train I just came on that was sitting on track # 4. If it was a limited express going back I had no way of knowing whether or not it would stop at Chita Handa. By taking the local, all I had to do was get on and, of course, stay awake!
While I was on the platform waiting my cell started vibrating. I had a message. I flipped the phone open and saw that I had two missed calls, a voice mail and a text message. I checked the text message and it was from Joe Hudson, my coworker. "You fall asleep?" All I could think of with a grin was "why didn't you wake me on your way off the train?"
It turns out I had slept through another two stops before Kowa as well as my phone ringing from two calls (and it isn't a quiet ring) as well as the vibrating it had been doing every 30 seconds for at least 10 minutes.
Next I checked the voice mail. Joe again, "Hey sleepy head wake up! We didn't realize you weren't with us until we got to the taxi stand. We waited for 5 minutes before we left." I deleted the message and text message, closed the phone and started to put in my pocket. The phone started ringing before I put it away.
Sure enough, it was Joe calling again. He explained that we had all been sitting fairly far apart today and there is always a bit of a crowd getting off the train. We usually just reconvene by the taxis since there are enough of us on different cars that we need two or three taxis. They just didn¿t realize I was still on the train.
I told him I was fine, laughed a bit at myself and said I might be a little late getting into to work today. I also told him I would pick up the cost of the taxi. Duh? :-)
About 7:28 the local showed up. I got on and after a few minutes (7:31 on the dot) we started rolling. We stopped at eight stations before I recognized Chita Handa and heard the conductor of this one call it out. I went to the taxi stand and grabbed the first taxi in line, said, "Fuji juko, kudasai!" and was off to the plant.
Needless to say I was the brunt of a lot of jokes all day over this episode. My favorite was the one about knowing which of to the seven dwarfs I am. So it wasn't the rapture, just me, letting the warmth of the train car and the rhythms of the rails lull me into an extra half hour of sleep. Tomorrow I'll be a little more attentive.
But I wasn't the only one having an "interesting" day. Four of us walked about a half mile at lunch over to the local MacDonalds. This was my first non-Japanese meal in Japan since the company Thanksgiving dinner in November. The MacDonalds is inside a local hardware store like a Lowes or Home depot.
We had just gotten there when Kelly, our staff analyst, arrived in her car. We all ordered and sat down to eat. The only thing remarkable about it over here is that a Big Mac is not big at all. But the fries were good.
When we were done Kelly offered to give us all a ride back to the plant. When we got out to the car she couldn't find her keys. We all went back into the store and searched for a good 10 minutes for her keys. Finally two of the guys said they would see us back at the plant and started walking back.
Finally I convinced Kelly that we had to look in the MacDonalds trash. We started digging through the two different recycling bins and were down about a foot into one when we found her keys with ketchup all over them. So I felt a whole lot less embarrassed by my little nap earlier in the day.
Now I'm safe and awake back in my Nagoya apartment. I'm sure there will me more adventures as well as misadventures to come. But I feel better knowing I can "survive" even my mistakes as a "stranger in a strange land".
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