Peter's Perspective:

Day 1 Continued

Bento Boxes

riding the taxi for our 2 hour trip to neighboring kyoto from osaka. huge buildings, huge infrastructure, third largest metropolis area in the country, it's only 5pm but where are the people? i see the vehicles in the freeway. but looking out, everyone is missing! i guess they're all inside. maybe japanese don't go out of buildings often? if this was manila, or some other developing country people would be all over the place. not here.

feeling of sheer size and excess of the built up environment continues as we drive thru the freeways and past the inward curving walls of sound baffles in the freeway that go on for miles and miles. but wait! i spot green! the weeds and vines have grown thru the the concrete and around the metal of the baffles and freeway dividers. nature, life, is clawing, creeping, squeezing its way thru this impenetrable fortress of concrete and metal. hmmm, could it be reasserting itself somehow?? more questions, more hypothesizing.

the evening convo with dad and manang casilda brings some light into the situation. casilda has been living and working here for 18 years. an outsider with an insider's knowledge. the perfect person to have an objective view but also one who can easily mingle with the locals as one of them. or at least as close as the natives will allow. we'll have to mine her with info. and ask the right questions.

evening dinner was sushi in nice little bento boxes with little compartments. suddenly i saw these bento boxes morph into the huge buildings that the japanese have built. and inside these giant boxes were the japanese people, happily ensconced in their little compartments, each in their place, each perfectly circumscribed with no room for growth or spilling over into the next box, just like a delectable piece of ahi sushi. that's why i never saw anybody outside. maybe they were afraid some huge chopsticks might come thru the clouds from some hungry god or gods and eat them.