• @aeronmelon
    link
    101 month ago

    When I moved to Japan, and often had to stand on the train with no hand hold, I quickly learned how to lower my center of gravity and balance on two feet against random tilting and turns at high speed.

    • Admiral Patrick
      link
      fedilink
      English
      10
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      Lol, yep.

      The university I attended had a tram system between campuses, and there was a certain point when it got to a long, straight stretch of track the car would speed up. There were never enough hand holds for the standing riders, and all the sophomore and above students expected it and just kind of leaned into it while the freshmen would just fall backwards and we’d laugh at them.

      • Flying SquidOPM
        link
        3
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        Damn. Lucky you. My campus was just super huge without that. There was a campus bus, but it was expensive. It sometimes took a good half an hour to get to your class if you walked, which sucked in the winter. To quote Phil Ochs, “to get around this campus, why you’d almost need a plane.”

          • Flying SquidOPM
            link
            21 month ago

            It seems like the rationale there is that there’s more than one campus in the same town. Not the case with IU, just one massive campus. But they could still do a rapid transit system and not charge far more than the city bus charges.

            Their website tells me the campus is nearly 2000 acres. I don’t doubt it. It’s only gotten bigger since I was there.

    • @saltesc
      link
      41 month ago

      Haha. When I first moved to a city, I’d never been on a train before and it was hard. But then I just engaged my surfing muscle memory and suddenly it was very easy. Because I was on a train every day, I always stood hands-free because it felt like good training while I was away from the ocean. Was a fun game.