List of notes - Japan

 Because looking back at moments put together in words can be more powerful than reviewing photos.

- Spending hours with map-chewing deer watching the tide flooding a gate and temples;

- Rowing in a gorge, splashed by a waterfall, greeting ducks, and becoming a face in a thousand pictures made by the other rowers;

- The sheer variety of shades of vivid, fresh green of the trees;

- The samurai dog sleeping soundly with his hat and sword, who wouldn't with such a soothing melody as the one played by his master;

- Fat orange fish in garden ponds, small fish in the sea at sunset. Jumping;

- The wave of "gozaimaaaaas", smiles and bows when leaving every restaurant. Answering in the same way thinking how cute they are and how good this food was;

- The texture of bamboo shot;

- Going from chaotically-colourful-hypermodern electronic town to obsessively traditional tea rituals or fire prayers;

- Army-size crowds yet feeling no anxiety as they carefully walk parallel to each other;

- Finding a childhood animation hero on window display with enlarged breasts and a naughty wink;

- Kids, funnily enough, in large groups and with little yellow hats. Posing with a rabbit torturer, weird story, or making the peace sign as they visit the epicenters of disasters I cannot grasp at my own age;

- Walking on the abandoned coal mine set of Ryu Murakami's "Coin-locker babies";

- An inviting toilet lifting its seat as you walk in, offering its spring and temperature options;

- Friends. Debating over cake and beer at night in a park, after a day of walking up a volcano;

- Leaving behind all my (anti-) karaoke principles, and (poorly) singing like there's no tomorrow.