I’ve talked before about living in foreign countries and how sometimes you must adapt to things that you may not encounter in your home country. Something interesting happened to me today, and it was something that would probably not have happened to my if I was still living in the United States. Today, the train line that I take to go to work was stopped.

In the United States, the public transportation system in most places that I have been to is generally not great. It has generally failed to take me to convenient locations near where I need to go. The last time that I took public transportation in the United States, I took a bus and ended up walking for another 45 minutes or so after getting off of the bus because there were no stops anywhere near where I wanted to go to.

In contrast to this, when I use public transportation in Tokyo, the bus or the train is always an extremely convenient way to travel, and it has always taken me to where I needed to go. The trains are mostly extremely reliable, but I have seen the trains stop running several times, including today. In today’s case, the line was temporarily closed, but when I arrived at the station, I noticed that the JR was closed. I went downstairs to the subway to find an alternative way to get to work. I was talking to the staff at the station when the staff got a report saying that operations had resumed. Fortunately for me, I understand Japanese well enough to be able to ask for directions and understand whatever directions I receive from the person that I am talking to, so I would have been able to use the alternative suggestion that the staff gave me, but I was lucky that the JR line resumed operations and I was able to get to work on time.

This sort of ability has been useful to me several times, and those who have lived in a foreign country and not been able to ask for directions will probably understand how frustrating it can be to not be able to ask for help or be able to understand any help that you may be given. Overall, I have not had this type of experience often, but in the situations in which it has happened, my abilities have been able to help me get to where I need to go.