Japan:
Quiet. Calmness emulates through the people, through the walls, and through the clean streets.
Polite. I don't know if it's everyone bowing to me, or what, but by the end I somehow naturally bow back to complete the cycle -- arigato gozaimasu!
Urban but not anonymous. The neon signs of the big city, but the sui generis izakayas; the contrast with following societal norm and the odd person that doesn't; the thousands of food selections but intricacy in its presentaiton.
Romantic. When I'm in the sento -- a public bath house -- and it's just me on a stool, scrubbing with a towel, and a mirror to look at myself in one moment. In the next, I'm with a bunch of naked guys taking a bath. But, the setting is not sexualized, just.. bare. And, that feeling of having soaked in heat, drinking a bottled milk, then bracing the dryness of the winter, but the freshness of the air.
Stuck. Japan was always "Bladerunner" in my mind: modern, futuristic, technological. It is, but it is from an eighties sense. In today's age, it seems to me that Japan is almost stuck in that time. A relic in modernity.
The "Art of Living" in Japan is intricate and nuanced from my foreign eyes. It's easy to fall into the trap of overexoticization, or to fall into the obsessive interest in the alternative-ness of it. Harajuku; crazy dyed hair; Mario-Karting through town. There's a depth to it. As if all the years of history and culture have layered then shaped, and continue to shape, the lives of the Japanese in modern times.
We mostly came to celebrate Christmas KFC. What we ended up doing was going to sentos everyday and taking long walks in parks.
