Missing the Torch
I knew something was up when I was coming back from my South Shinjuku English lesson at around 3PM today. There was a speaker at the station with a huge audience even in the pouring rain but that didn't catch my attention. What seemed weird were the police waiting with GATES at several major intersections as if to close off the street for some very important looking reason.

No, thankfully, it has nothing to do with Ronald Reagan's death. As sad as it is, the man has been dying for a good long time now and I don't think we need to make a big deal of his passing.

It was raining pretty hard and I had things to do, so when the bus passed by the Skyscraper district stops, I kept on riding until home. Not until the 7 o'clock news did I find out that what I missed was the OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY.

Bloody fucking hell. It was right here in my back yard and it ENDED, of all places, at the Metropolitan Government building. That's a 15-minute walk from here.

Granted, the relay didn't arrive in Shinjuku until 6pm, so it would have been a far cry for me to have been there by coincidence. Also, I doubt that had I asked, someone would have been able to tell me what was happening-- people in this city seem remarkably unaware of their surroundings.

From what I saw on the news, the relay itself was pretty tame and the crowds were fierce. I might have lost an eye to an umbrella. But still... the Olympic Torch Relay was four blocks away. And I bloody missed it.

ACKKFFTTTK.