Japan for some Baseball and Serenity

I was walking Rhino up to the Peak today I couldn’t help but reflect on the time that has passed in Hong Kong. As I walked up the streets, I passed couples wandering around. Incapable of absorbing the magnitude of the city and the business of the streets.

Two years ago, as we toured around Hong Kong deciding if this was a place where we could live, Lisa and I must have looked very much like these couples. Their gaze, slightly higher than the Hong Kong locals’ beams up at the stories on stories. The fascination with the endless rows of high-rise building makes the Hong Kong tourist stand out among the intently moving locals. As I walk the street now, I bet I look more like the local than the tourist. And as my time as a temporary local comes to a close I reflect more and more on this.

This post isn’t about Hong Kong but in a way; every post could have been. Each place we visited provided a different lens from which to look at our current, past, and future lives. This post is about Japan, the place that unlike any other that we’ve been to, offers a space for purposeful reflection and in a time when we needed it.

BASEBALL

Lisa had made up her mind that she was going to plan a trip for my birthday. I usually let her do most of the destinations selection but this time I was very selfish. I chose Japan because it was a place that I have always been inftrigued with since a class project in 3rd grade. And because it was still baseball season in Tokyo.

BASEBALL_2

We made plans for Tokyo: for city life and baseball, and Kyoto: for quiet and history. I honestly only remember a few actual events and places: The baseball between the Tokyo Giants and rival Yakult Swallows was amazing. It was like a AAA game with world series fans and FIFA intensity.

SUSHI

The fresh sushi from the Tokyo fish market was delicious. There is no better place than right from the source.  

BAMBOO

Our quiet little guesthouse in Kyoto with our sleeping pads laid out on the woven bamboo floor also stands out as does the landscaping of the Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion’s) grounds.Everything else that I remember was this feeling of calm that was as opaque as Miso soup.

TEMPLES

After being in Hong Kong I would have thought it was impossible to sleep on the subway, but in the evenings, there was always at least one or two people doing just that. The subway cars were quiet- even the cars on the street were quiet hybrids. Everybody respectfully preserves the calm.

FUTBOL

It was everywhere we went. The streets were all perfectly clean and tidy, the buildings are laid out like a bento box, and every single thing, in the cities and the country, has its purpose and its place. The calm was everything that in Hong Kong is chaos.

INYARA

It was a great weekend. After the beginning madness of wedding planning, the challenges of starting a freelance business abroad, and the general business that is our lives and November Project Hong Kong, a long, calm weekend was perfect. It was just the perspective that we needed.

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