Thick Toast

"Japanese find great joy in small things," our cab driver explained. He said one might walk up to the mountains, find an herb, and then cook dinner with it. That is great joy. The nature, the simplicity. I nodded, thinking how gathering herbs from the mountains is a common activity in Harvest Moon 64.

We arrived at 5 AM and decided to seize the day, wrangle the jet lag. The train was silent. We had breakfast in the station. Mm the iced latte and toast was three dollars. A stark difference from America. You don't realized how gouged you are until you go somewhere normal. The bread was thick, with a pad of salted butter. A thousand people walked by the window. So the same, most masked, almost no one saying a word.

On our final morning in Tokyo we had breakfast at the same spot. Now older and wiser. There was a mix-up and we accidentally ordered three lattes. I kept saying it was okay, but the barista demanded our credit card. We handed it to her and fifteen minutes later someone came back with it, a return had been made. You just hand over bank cards and leave purse zippers accessible in Japan. You walk down dark alleys and rarely hear loud sounds. When you do, it's never a gun.