Japan is an infinitely frustrating land. For reasons same as any other displaced member of a foreign world; being away from one's native language and comforting whole grain cereals, can totally suck on any given day of the week.
But for every moment that has nigh-reduced me to plaster dents and a fistful of Ibuprofen, Japan has always faithfully redeemed herself to keep us from breaking up.
Korakuen Garden on the last official day of summer. Calling it "one of Japan's most beautiful gardens" is both a overstatement, and an understatement at the same time. With an overzealous prefectural tourism industry pumping air-headed sightseeing propaganda into its oft-dull locales, these wild generalizations often go without much warrant, yet still manage to earn high levels of undeserved return in revenue.
Not that night though. Between the hours of 8 and 9 pm, I had finally found a place in the world that was filled with people, but there was somehow no conflict. They were not scrambling to work, or clinging to rungs on some corporate ladder. They were not firing guns, or planting explosives. They were not whoring themselves for votes, or trading dignity for rent money.
Only candlelit grass, still water, and crickets. Even the clouds parted to give the full moon his due.
Most dictionaries would stop at "surreal." But if you had been there that night, "surreal" is the laziest possible description for the existence of a place where even the planet itself was given much-needed relief from spinning.
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