Seen at a square in Costa Rica.
There was a KFC nearby. And a Burger King. And a McDonalds, and pizza something or other. It was like the square of the Ugly American.
And there was Mr. Pigeon.
Picking clean the carcasses of his brethren.
Gross.
Today was a sad day. My hat, the hat I scoured Tokyo shops for, meant to warm my ears for years hence, has been lost to a cold, premature death by the waterfalls of Lake Toya in Aomori prefecture.
Perhaps for an hour, it was hopeful of a happy reunion. Inevitably and all too quickly, that confidence faded with the residual warmth from my pocket. It lies collapsed somewhere, helpless and lifeless, that last shred of warmth long since sucked into muddy leaves and gray twilight.
The problem with group tours (okay, one problem) is that even when you realize you’ve dropped something, say, half an hour into a walk, you can’t go back for it. So maybe (just maybe) you jog back, intensely scanning the road, but after five minutes of blank trail, you have to turn back or you’ll hold up the bus. Also, maybe your dad is screaming at you and your mom shouldn’t be made to hold your stuff too much longer.
A replaceable accessory, yes. But I still feel like I’m letting someone down. Like disappointing a kid, or a puppy.
I know I could’ve found it. But I didn’t. And now it can’t be a hat, it has to be a decomposing lump of fabric, or maybe another scrap of nothing in the lost-and-found.
And all because I was careless.
Maybe I’m getting soft in old age. Or maybe I never outgrew an attachment to fuzzy things.
Bye, hat. I’m sorry.
It’s Saturday, and the beginning of a five day weekend. Yes. five.
As I leave Japan in three weeks (!) things like goodbyes are starting to appear. Whether it’s a friend or a favored food place, I’ve started to gauge the likelihood of another encounter before I go.
Today’s trip finds me headed to kansai for one meeting I know won’t happen again for a while. more visit to my homestay family from college. I go bearing what might be my weirdest “hey what’s up” present yet, baumkuchen and fish eggs.
Since I’ve been insanely busy and tired from work, I’m coughing up money for the bullet train over the night bus. (I would like to state for the record that I purchased my shinkansen ticket unassisted, from the ticket machine.) I’m on a nozomi, the fastest kind! For those who can read Japanese, you can see that from tokyo to kyoto, there’s a stop at shin yokohama, and one at nagoya. Two hours and fifteen minutes. California, pleaaase catch up before I die.