I was blasting through the Japanese countryside today after a more leisurely stretch and I was seeing the greens roll beside the parks, full and moving...and I felt it all. I felt the country. Or more particularly, I felt the late summer Japanese weekend. I felt for them what these weekends meant for me back home, growing up or even recently...something rich, something that's quite difficult to put words to, something I believe you can only get out of a country once you've earned it. I'm beginning to believe I have.
