- Bronze eyed pigeons, feet pink as crab shells
- Rooms measured by tatami mats that smell warm and toasted like just-cleaned stables
- The Harajuku Kawaii! Food Court Mall
- Clouds that ripple and texture like washi paper
- The clean feeling of cycling Nara’s streets in the rain
- The view from Kansai International Airport of far-away buildings that dissolve into the warm November sea like a line of smudged chalk
- Ferns in the forest that twist like geckos’ tails
- The herons and koi and wading fishermen of every river
- Pink roses wrapped tight
- Talking to people from all over the world around a table in a century-old tea master’s home-turned-guesthouse in Nara. An artist who shows me how to write “ocean” in Japanese. A Swiss girl so young she has the energy to visit seven Japanese cities in seven days. A Colombian in a beautiful Sri Lankan dress. A Catalan book editor. A retired Japanese docent now living in Washington, D.C.
- Spider webs sticky and orange, like juice concentrate that’s been left sitting with the lid left off
- Gasps of light tearing through bamboo forests
- Babies in kimonos
- Adults in kimonos
- Muscle-legged boys in hot pants rickshaw-ing couples around Kyoto’s temples
- The hot foot tingle of a day spent stomping around Tokyo
- A man in white cropped trousers and t-shirt smoking a cigarette outside Sensō-ji in the middle of Tokyo while his pet pig gets photographed by schoolgirls
- Pavements smashed with fallen plum and persimmon
- Allotments everywhere
- Pickled plums that look like shrivelled balls
- Sesame dressing
- Thatched roofs
- All the moss
- All the mushrooms
- Drains where wild orchids grow
- Wild boar in temple forests
- Bamboo vibrating in the wind like violin strings being pulled tight
- The wide-legged, soft cardiganned silhouettes of so many young women
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I can’t wait to visit Japan someday. Your post just made me long for it even more!
Thanks Jill! Nice to hear from you. Hope you’re doing great!