Trains, busses, and subways...Oh my!

Now, for the first time in my life, I am officially a commuter.  Even as I write this, I am sitting on a bus, the third leg of my morning commute.  I have about an hour long journey each way that involves walking, riding a light rail train, and taking a bus.

This change in transportation has caused me to make some changes in my mental process for figuring out how and when I am going somewhere (and most importantly, when I need to leave).  At home, deciding on a restaurant or finding a certain store meant a simple google map search.  A quick check of how long it took to drive there, plus the addition of a few extra minutes for traffic, confusion, and unforeseen circumstances, and I knew when I needed to be out the door and on the road.  But that was when I had a car.

Now that I rely on public transportation, my travel choices revolve around time tables and route maps.  And everything runs on a tight schedule.  Miss one train or bus by even a minute and you could wind up an hour late.  This is not such a big deal on weekends or trips made for fun (unless it is the last train home and missing it means sleeping at the subway station), but for work it means I have to leave by 6:30AM at the absolute latest.  Coming home, I need to be on my way out the school door at 4:05PM, my scheduled quitting time, to get to the bus stop just in time to catch my ride.  Any later, and I have to wait 30 minutes for the next bus (which has happened and was not fun).

For someone with only a relative grasp of time (I’m sensing a pattern here), this has involved some mental rewiring.  I am staring to understand why there are clocks everywhere in Japan.  Although I am still not sure why they are all slightly different times.  Just from my desk in the staff room I can see four different clocks with four different times.