A small bump in the plan

I then walked very quickly to the train station to catch an express train (that I had looked-up ahead of time) to Noboribetsu. However, I got to the station only to find that there had been an accident on that JR line and there were no trains running in the Noboribetsu direction. (This is a very rare occurrence in Japan. It is a rare thing for even a train to be late over a minute from its directed time). Furthermore, they could not give an estimate of how long it would be until the trains were up and running again. I was very flustered, so I called Seino-san, the former head librarian of the Noboribetsu Public Library who I had been in contact with via email (thanks to Professor Strong’s gracious introduction). He was kind enough to get on his computer and search alternate transportation. He told me there was a 1:00 bus from the station. I looked at the clock and realizing that I had 10 minutes to find the bus terminal, buy a ticket, and get on the bus I quickly thanked him and ran to an information desk. I managed to board the bus (which ended up being a little cheaper than the train) just in time and Seino-san met me at the bus stop without any further incident.