Sounds like the title of a lost Graham Greene novel. I'm sitting at the computer on a tatami mat amid a chaos of half-packed bags, Kerry is making French toast, and we are awaiting a ride to the subway (and hence the train to Osaka, the plane to Tokyo, and the night flight home) in two hours.
As the trip (and blog) concludes, I am conscious of having written about far, far less of our experiences than I meant to. I have kept a sporadic diary too, but on more days than not we have been just too busy to record what we were doing, even in the most telegraphic list-like form, much less reflecting at length on it.
Just one example: as we biked the river yesterday I was thinking about the differences between the courtly, precise, always-careful-not-to-offend manners of Thailand and (in a different way) Japan, as compared to the brusqueness (to put it politely) of Vietnam or China. To us, the Chinese and Vietnamese can seem extraordinarily pushy, rude and uncouth... and that, I suspect, is just how we seem to the Thais and Japanese. Just one thing I wanted to write about in more detail and have not.
Anyway, I have loved that aspect of Japan - along with its related obsession with aesthetics, the gorgeous gardens etc etc - and wish I could have done a crash course in the language and history and then spent a month or two here. Next time, perhaps... extended travel does make you greedy!
And yet... in another way I'm truly looking forward to coming home.
Time for breakfast.
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