Oh yeah, I almost forgot...

This was almost the best part of the trip!

On the way to Fuji, at one of the stations where we had to switch trains, the escalator going down was packed. I was a little sleepy, and a little bored. No one was on the up escalator. I double-checked, and made sure that no one was approaching the up escalator. So I started running. Only to hear someone yelling at me in Japanese. I stopped, realized it wasn't anyone official and that I was rapidly moving back towards him, and started running again. Made it down, now wide awake and not at all bored. Angry yelling guy came up to me and kept yelling. (Now it's getting exciting). M and C were down by this time too. I kept trying to tell him (in Japanese) that I didn't understand Japanese. In hindsight, I can see where that might not have been entirely believable. From what M could tell, he was sure I was Japanese and was yelling at me for doing bad things in front of my foreign friends. C was ready to kick him if he got violent. The other Japanese commuters and even the conductor he complained to just looked amused/entertained. Added some excitement to a long train trip.