9 - Making an Imperfect Storm

Summary

The first time I went to Japan, nearly three decades ago now, I took a short walk from my hotel near the University of Tokyo into the foggy and still night without a map, without the World Wide Web, without any knowledge of the Japanese language. It was November, a thick white blanket of almost frozen vapour covering everything outside, including my visual and mental perception. As my spectacles fogged up, adding another layer to my perceptual fogginess, I walked a hundred paces one way down the street then back again. Then another hundred in the other direction. Turning a corner to the left, then back again. Then two hundred in the other direction. You get the picture; I was building an image, a mind-map, of an unusually silent foggy island within the usually hustle-bustling city of Tokyo. When I felt I had done enough mental mapping I went back to my hotel room and drew a physical map on a scrap of paper of my walk. I have it somewhere still.