Sayonara

When you get used to parking attendants bowing to you (90 degrees) and polite men guiding you to safety at road blocks (with a bow) ....

When you routinely start seeing trash in your mind as 'burnable, 'non burnable' and 'recyclable'....

When you expect the world to be spotless and always run on time...

...its time to pack up and get real.



Japan's hushed orderliness spoils you into believing that the world has actually become a better place to live in. When you get out of it, the rest of the world seems like a cacophony of sounds and brash people who havent been taught any manners. Dangerous, when you know that someday you will be yanked out of this temporary Utopia and dumped into the real world.



After two lovely years in a place that gave me more than I expected, its time to move on and...well get real. And how. We get back to India next week and meet Life head on. Nothing couched there, nothing indirect and politeness is an inconvenient waste of time.

Capturing Tokyo, I said in my first post, was like trying to catch a thousand different sensations in a bottle. In my two years maybe I did hold and understand some.Others I just soaked in without bothering to decipher.

I cant imagine anyone walking away unscathed from Japan. It is bound to change you , even if imperceptibly so. I know it has changed me. Taught me patience, given me clarity and helped me understand that speed is not the fastest way to get to your goal always- patience and perfection might get you there more soundly. It has tempered my spirit and taught me to respect even the tiniest details.

Maybe when my mind is being 'bheja fried' (battered) in India, I can escape to my 'inner Japan' to repair and restore in its noiseless calm. Maybe I'll carry that always with me - my own portable Inner Peace and maybe that can only be a Japanese thing!

Sayonara beautiful Japan.