Savour and delight in Tokyo again

Tokyo’s constantly on my mind. I just spent 10 minutes savouring the salmon sushi I had a the Tokyo fish market two years ago. They say that $1 million worth of fish is sold there every morning. You have to get up at 5am to catch all the action, and I got there just in time for lunch. The sushi was unbelievably fresh, fresher than I can ever get it in Toronto. This piece of salmon sushi melted in my mouth like butter. I had to have another piece just to make sure I didn’t imagine it. So good!

There’s one moment that I relive often when my mind wanders back to my short trip to Tokyo. It happened on a cloudy November afternoon of mindless walking, taking in the gorgeous and audacious culture that’s Tokyo. In Harajuku, a district known for it’s hip shopping and laced goth kids [think Barbie with a major attitude], I had my first moment of true silence.

Harajuku is loud and busy like every other major city, but in the middle of the racing cars and the fumes, stands a shrine that says no to the outside. I remember nervously crossing a bridge only a few feet up from the racing cars below and walking up to the entrance of this shrine. A thirty foot high wooden pillar announced its beginning. The moment I walked past the entrance and into the forested walkway, I felt such a calm, as if solitude closed the door behind me; the traffic disappeared and the clock stopped. It was the first time that I truly experienced peace.

The long gravelled walkway was lined with green leafy trees, gently whistling in the autumn cool. I notice all of this and then I notice an elderly man raking leaves. He gently, methodically rakes the leaves into two straight parallel lines. I watch this and wonder why and then it doesn’t matter. It is what it is.