Arriving in Tokyo, one sees the city as a billion points of blue or white light. From this perspective on land or sea, the traveler will see the vast metropolis of some ten million people and be awed by the experience. There is so much to see and do that a single lifetime cannot encompass a fraction of it all, let alone learn to comprehend it. All of Japan can leave the visitor who is unprepared (which is all of us, let's be honest) struggling to absorb the sensory overload which comes hurtling at us even as we descend in aircraft or bob forward in a boat.
The nation of Japan and Tokyo in particular are places poised in a strange yoga stance. One foot leaps forward, bending and stretching with open arms towards the future. Go to Akihabara, Odaiba, Ginza or Shinjuku and tell me one does not see the flashy, gaudy images of a future almost reminiscent of "Blade Runner." Everything from robots to computers, bio-science, energy, the environment and humanity seems light-years ahead of its time. The Japanese seek to improve with intuition. They invent and reinvent, borrowing from other cultures. This cycle and the intuition behind it come from a different place, however.
Using our imagined yoga pose, we can envision Japan with one foot stretching forward, but the other is bolstered in antiquity. Two thousand yeas of absorbing and adapting other cultures into its own has not changed the spirit of Japan. Go to temples, wander wooded mountains, eat ramen, watch the Japanese file dutifully into subways by the thousands, and you will see that soul still burns bright. No individual or group can explore all the ancient secrets of Japan in a lifetime anymore or imagine the possible futures it creates. Many try to see a single facet, explore it, but only scratch the surface of this ever-changing jewel of a country.
For me thirty years in pursuit of a simple dream feels like a lifetime. Japan remains demure, audacious, salacious and refined. She entices as when I first ate seaweed when I was five and became enamored with her. One could say I am in a tenuous marriage to the concepts and culture of Japan, even as I cannot invite myself to her home so often as I like. Still, she extends an open invitation at least. The overtures were made, conversation over coffee is had regularly and we remain friends even if we speak a different language.
In traveling to Japan and writing my thoughts in this new set of journals, I hope to continue what I began in my previous blog. I hope to open the eyes of others and expand my horizons. This will not just be travels to Japan, of course. With luck, Japan is merely an appetizer to a much more expansive menu of places, peoples and cultures. Let's get started!
