Obon

Ah, quiet. It's Obon! During this mid-August week most small businesses close and many larger companies take a holiday, too. Over the weekend, 50% of Tokyo residents evacuated. Traffic jams on every highway leading out kept people stuck on the roads for hours longer than usual. Every Sinkansen was full to capacity and non-reserved express trains were even fuller.

But now that everyone's left, I've been able to get a seat on the train every day. Yesterday during the evening commute, a man was practicing his golf swing in the aisle.

Obon is the time when people head back to their hometowns. Visit with the parents, gorge on Mom's cooking, dance at the bon odori festival to entertain and appease the ancestral spirits, then it's back on the train (or into the car) rushing back to the city to work.