Tadaima

Much can be said about my trip to the east and much can be listed, but lists are boring, and telling everyone straight out what occurred as a laundry-like detail of life can get tedious. Instead…

I've been to the Land of the Rising Sun and seen things that do not exist in the West. There is a temple of gold built on the ponds within small forests and a temple of earth and wood built into the side of a mountain, both are places of reflection and meditation. There are streets crowded with young adults and children, filling shops and massive chain stores with loud cries of excitement and frantic cellular phone calls. There is a red-hued street crossing which is periodically flooded with waves of human beings, fraught with consumer delight. There is an electric city, gleaming in the neon night with branded beauty. There are amusement halls of casino delight with businessmen in dark suits carrying bucketfuls of aluminum bearings and dreams of golden treasure. There are metal trains of great speed that carry men over streets on concrete pillars and their smaller cousins who live underground filled with youthful academics in dark uniforms and sleeping office-dwellers on their way to drink and song. There are gleaming, colorful monuments built to artists of illustration and film, one with a giant stroboscopic marvel of live animated beauty and the other a home to an atomic boy. There is a There are modern towers surrounded by rural quiet and rice fields aplenty. There is a Japan of old and a Japan of new. I've seen them both, and I've not seen enough.

One week is not enough time to experience all of it, but we saw a lot in 6 days. The jetlag hasn't been so bad yet, and I'm hoping it won't be, but right now it's light when I should be sleeping, and dark when I should be awake, so my brain has yet to normalize. For a first time out of the country, Japan was much fun and inspiring enough for me to want to see more. I bought too many toys, ate too many noodles, and walked too many miles.

I loved every minute of it.

Thanks to Grace, for being patient with me for taking me somewhere I've always wanted to go.