Sometimes things strike me as odd here and it takes me a moment to figure out why. Kogo and I went out to an area of Tokyo called Heiwadai, not that far out of the centre, but as soon as I left the station I could tell something was different - it felt like I had walked into another city. I could tell it had something vaguely to do with there being fewer high-rise buildings around. Then it clicked. There was more sky. So much blue. In most of Tokyo you have to look up to see the sky, because buildings take up your field of vision, but here suddenly it felt so open.
Another example was when I went to the bookshop the other day. As I was looking around, I suddenly felt something was different. And then I realised: the whole floor was completely quiet! There were people, but no announcements or promotions over any speakers. Bliss! This is so rare in a Japanese commercial environment. There is so much noise everywhere and you get so used to ignoring it and associating only your home, small backstreets, parks and art galleries with quietness that to find yourself in a quiet bookshop is a real surprise!
(I finished another book today - I'm so happy!)
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3 comments:
Thank you! I'm thinking your handbag is going to be full of many heavy, book-shaped bulges by the time I see you again in March.
You have no idea how frustrating this boook situation of the last four-five years has been. One of the things I was looking forward to most about my gap year was the time to read, but Cambridge came and hijacked all that with its stupid reading list. And then it turned out that hardly any of those books were necessary to my first year, and by the time I did need them in the second year I'd forgotten what they were all about.
Ooh, a "book-shaped" present?! I wonder what it could be?! Is it a corkscrew? Is it a melon? I like melons.
I don't need a talking Kim Jong Il toy. I'm having Christmas dinner with the man himself. He tells me that they have the best turkeys in the world in North Korea, because communism is the biggest turkey of them all.
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