Not color blind
If I segment sections of my life into memorable mornings, I am left with a few reflections: as a kid the thing I looked forward to most in the morning was eating cereal; after I entered college and came home on breaks, a morning was defined by the coffee I made and the music playing on the satellite radio (the broadway station or the coffee house on sirius, hah). When I look back to the mornings I am quickly flying through in Tokyo, I will remember the delicious food that I make in solitude. Though occasionally such loneliness in the morning has been broken, I will paraphrase one of the french kids who has been here since September when he said: "when you first get here, you are utterly alone. You want to reach out and grasp onto any of the Japanese people you can meet, but what often ends up occurring is you becoming more comfortable with the other exchange students."
The feeling of loneliness is something I want to visit in greater detail. Though I am not truly alone, nor am I without Japanese friends, I can't speak the language well enough to get through ordinary conversation. I hang my head in shame as I walk these streets, aware that my ignorance prevents me from experiencing this world as well as I'd like to. This feeling is perpetuated by the fact that in a scant two months, I will be back in a world where I roll out of bed in rapidly disappearing morning - to make coffee, and to listen to that satellite radio....read the New York Times. Studying abroad will seem like one REALLY WEIRD thing that I did.
I am continually struck by the beauty around me; though I may have voiced my misgivings before for the quality of beauty that urban scenery has, I have no doubts in saying that Tokyo is an amazing place. When your primary concern throughout the day is finding a trash can, I would say that the city you're living in is fairly well put-together. And it has to be. The bandwidth of people, so to speak, is at times so high that it has to be seen to be believed.
Last weekend we went to Takao-san, a nearby mountain. The view from the summit?
Breathtaking
The feeling of loneliness is something I want to visit in greater detail. Though I am not truly alone, nor am I without Japanese friends, I can't speak the language well enough to get through ordinary conversation. I hang my head in shame as I walk these streets, aware that my ignorance prevents me from experiencing this world as well as I'd like to. This feeling is perpetuated by the fact that in a scant two months, I will be back in a world where I roll out of bed in rapidly disappearing morning - to make coffee, and to listen to that satellite radio....read the New York Times. Studying abroad will seem like one REALLY WEIRD thing that I did.
I am continually struck by the beauty around me; though I may have voiced my misgivings before for the quality of beauty that urban scenery has, I have no doubts in saying that Tokyo is an amazing place. When your primary concern throughout the day is finding a trash can, I would say that the city you're living in is fairly well put-together. And it has to be. The bandwidth of people, so to speak, is at times so high that it has to be seen to be believed.
Last weekend we went to Takao-san, a nearby mountain. The view from the summit?
Breathtaking