Finale...

Ghibli & Kamakura...

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.

Bon Odori...

I'm not sure exactly when I got here, in Tokyo. I was supposed to leave last night or yesterday and then extended a few more days. All I know -- I've been here now for a substantial amount of time and I don't want to leave. I've seen so much. I've seen nothing. A couple days ago, I started leaving the maps at home, finding my own way, following lights or people, sounds or smells or instinct. Tokyo has turned into a feeling, one I already miss. At some point I'll go somewhere. Maybe. I feel like I should. I want to. Or maybe not. This is me confused.

Tokyo...

Is a couple of things to me. It's a suburban playground in a town with a lot of money, enough so they can cover everything with colored foam padding, so that if there's a fall, no one ever really gets hurt. Not really...

It's that dream where you're running from something, in a race but your legs won't work. Not really. Like you're treading water on the ground or floating just above it. Why? Well, there are certain things in this world that speak to me. Haribos on the streets of Berlin, running down the winding coastline of Victoria Drive, the way Brandon Flowers writes a song, the way Matthew Bellamy plays one, driving through empty red Utah, the smell of snow. Because I've lived with myself for as long as I have, I always suspected Japanese girls might one day prove to be one of those things. But I never thought it would be like this. They're fit and fashionable and beautiful and every one of them looks like they're capable of bare-handed murder. I've been struck more times in the past 3 days than I have been in the past 3 months. So then why the dream? Secret of Japan, no one speaks English. They also don't realize that no one speaks Japanese - which I sort of admire. I can't communicate with words and I'm worried about my understanding of the way they play, about coming across a situation where I need something from someone and that my eyes might not be enough...