All winter, I have to use buses to get to my schools each day, and I have no choice but to travel during rush hour. The buses are naturally pretty damned full.
Japan has long been famous for the train station attendants who literally shove people into the packed trains in Tokyo, but this is no Toyko. Aomori doesn't even have convenient local trains, much less enough passengers to need shoving, but we've got buses and a commute that puts all the businessmen and the high school students on the busses at the same time.
So when your timing's not good, you're forced to shove your own way into these over-crowded buses. Or if the bus driver will allow it, stand on the boarding steps.
The thing is, the buses aren't usually full. The riders just tend to crowd around the entry door, and no matter how full the bus is, they almost never scoot toward the often comparably spacious back of the bus.
It's times like this that I'm glad I'm a foreigner and not afraid of high school boys like so many people around here are. If you impolitely ask people to move toward the back (something even the lamebrain bus driver wouldn't do), they'll do it. Or there's always the standby of lowering one shoulder and pushing forward with an irritated "suimasen".
(It's my hope for the new year to be less bothered by this kind of thing)
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