Keio Line Madness

So today on the Keio was a suicide. Where somebody jumped off the tracks into a passing train. Not really too uncommon but it's really rare to happen on the Keio line and it happened once last week. Last week it happened when I was going home and we had to wait about 10 minutes at a station. And we passed by the station where it happened and you could see all the police and the blue tarps covering the bodies. It was two people I think last week. Something kind of interesting is that their shoes were taken off and placed at the edge of the platform before they jumped. Much like the Japanese custom is to take off your shoes before you enter a house. Something about ritualistic purity. Kind of shows how suicide is still revered as a sacred and pure thing. A lot different than the traditional "straight to hell" western judeo-christian thought.

Anyway, so today it actually happened at the station I was at while I was there. A quick explanation about the trains: there are several types of trains that run on the same line, express, special express, local, rapid etc. So depending on the train you get on, some of the stations are skipped. I was on a local this morning so we were waiting at a station for the "special express" train to pass. And I saw the train go past the platform but then it stopped all of a sudden. Kind of wierd I thought. But then I finally figured out what happened. So strange....