Long Living Tortoise's Walk in Tokyo
"My favorite bus"
Yoshie Iimori
September 17, 2001
When I was a high school student I usually went to school by bicycle, but by bus on rainy days, and I didn't like to take the bus at that time. Particularly in the mornings when I begrudged losing a minute or even a second, it was quite common to wait for more than ten minutes because of traffic. Also I often had to let a few buses go by before I could get on because they were jam-packed. To make it worse, another of the reasons I didn't like a bus was that the students of a girl's school, which was located one stop before mine, chattered very loudly and I couldn't enjoy reading. Knowing that I could move freely by bicycle, I just hated the time on the bus which I couldn't control. For that reason, I remember sighing while looking out from the fogged window at the view blurred by rain every time when I was on the bus. But as I no longer take a bus at time of the day, I now enjoy getting on buses very much. When I don't have anything else to do I always think about taking a bus. It's because that I can see the movement of people from the window and I also can pass through the middle of a local shopping street. I'd say that it's like going along a passage thicker than a capillary but thinner than an artery. Still, although I really like it, I don't have a chance to take the bus so often. Because buses are not always on time due to the road conditions such as traffic jams, I don't really have tyhr ime to take the bus since I'm always pressed for time. So I at least try to use a bus when I'm going home straight from somewhere, and I also enjoy an imaginary bus tour in my head while looking at a bus route map.
Because I had nothing but plenty of time when I was a student, I used to take the bus to go to some places like Harajuku and Shibuya, but as it goes a long way round and takes quite a while, I rarely use it now. Yet I pleasurably think back on myself somehow feeling lucky when I happened to sleep comfortably feeling the joggling on a bus without waking up until I found myself arriving in front of Harajuku station before I knew it. There used to be a bus route from the front of my current house to Ikebukuro when I was a child, but it was no longer available by the time I entered elementary school. As I now go to Ikebukuro regularly every week, I regretfully think how convenient it could have been if it were still available. It must have been a kind of route letting you physically feel the undulating geographical features of Yamanote. Speaking of being no longer available, some of the Metropolitan bus services were eliminated with the commencement of the Oedo subway. Ifelt a bit sad as I thought of those bus routes even though I don't even use them anyway. I guess that more and more bus services are going to be abolished due to budgetary cutbacks, but on the other hand there is also something notable such as a mini bus system developed by Musashino City.
I don't dislike subways, but the only fly in the ointment is that I can't enjoy the scenery. If I were only able to find a good spot in the front car, I can look out the motorman's cab and enjoy feeling the curves and imagine how far the surface would be from there. But if there is a child who seems to be attracted by the spot, I can't do anything but to give it up. The Ginza Line is not as bad, but the newly built subway stations are located considerably deep under the ground that require us even to change from one elevator to another to go deeper and deeper, and it always gives me a vague feeling of anxiety that I wouldn't be able to escape. On that point, a bus is easier as I can make up my mind to kick a window open and jump off if something happens.
Anyway there are three bus routes that I often use now. They leave from Ueno, Shinbashi, and Shinjuku. I most often use the one from Ueno on the way home. As there is no traffic in the evening it takes only twenty minutes to the bus stop near my house. Although it's actually in Tokyo, a shopping street where a bus passes through is still a "village" in a sense, so everything closes quite early in the evening. It gets very quiet. There are only two or three passengers on the bus as well. Everybody else gets off before me most of the time and I am usually the last one in the bus. I feel like a king. And it only costs 200 yen to experience this luxury.
I think it'd be nice to have a car, but in a place like Tokyo where the means of public transportation is highly developed, I feel guilty to be riding in a car by myself, taking environmental problems into consideration. So if I take a bus I can satisfy my desire to ride in a car and at the same time, because it is public transportation, my sense of justice for society is not going to be disgraced.
There are millions of bus routes I want to find a chance to take sometimes. I'd get on a bus at any bus stop which attracts my attention. Then I'd push a button to get off when I find something interesting. I believe that nothing but having time to be able to go for such kind of self-indulgent trip is the height of opulence. I'm thinking to go to somewhere by bus on my next day off. I'll see where I'll be going by leaving everything to chanceÉ it should be quite an adventure.
Translated by Maiko Noda
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