WJAAS or not WJAAS - some classic Japan, at last!

Seems I only dedicated the whole myself to audio and tubes and discs chasing... false!

I visited in Tokyo a couple of awesome museums, antique swords shops (this is for you, Fabio-san...) in Ginza District/Tokyo and in Kyoto, and castles, shrines, parks, and Zen gardens, took a bath in an onsen, in hot spring water, visited pagodas, met Federica, always in Kyoto and, together, we had good time visiting Nara temples and caressing young deers and laughing and joking and seeing the huge bronze Buddha and looking for the most ancient original wooden building in whole Japan, after a long, pleasant walk in the rice-fielded countryside...

Made stamps on postcards like a schoolboy, with true schoolboys and teachers smiling at me at Nijo-jo Mae in Kyoto... simple, down-to-earth little joys... like smoking my pipe under the trees in the marvellous Kyoto Imperial Palace gardens, looking at people in a de Chirico-like landscape with immense sky and late afternoon golden sunlight.

Satori in Kyoto.

I've been gaijin's gaijin for two weeks, the tallest of the bunch, and I simply let me flow, following, naturally, only my wishes and will.

Arrived at dusk in Hiroshima to visit Bomb Memorial where only a young lady and myself stopped few minutes in front of the fire and dome to say "no more wars", humbly, yet sincerely, on Sept. 11th... what would have happened if more more and more did the very same?

Felt silly, alone and fragile, BUT sincere...

What remains now I'm back home is a sweet sadness, a saudade, like I'm missing something... people, first but - maybe - also the freedom I breathed for two great, easy and difficult at same time, but always interesting and intriguing weeks.