A funny thing happened to me on the train home the other day. I had a conversation with a total stranger.

The train, a local on the Odakyu Line, wasn't crowded. Having no high school girls nearby at which to ogle, I was perusing, as I am sometimes wont to do, a vernacular tabloid. An elderly gentleman, dressed in a gray business suit, sat on my left and when I looked up I saw he was watching me with a bemused smile

"Chosen hanto no jokyo ga hijo ni kimpaku shiteiru (the situation seems to be heating up on the Korean Peninsula)," I remarked matter of factly.