A bit of nostalgia came over me the other day. I was riding on the train with my son, it was a humid warmish day, few people on the train, the door between the cars open. I was listening to the sound of the wheels rolling on the tracks, listening to the metal parts holding the cars together making clanking noise. The humid air had a special smell, it felt a bit old and looking at the red velvet-like seat in front of me I suddenly experienced that special bittersweet feeling of thinking of times past. Unfortunately we had to get of at the next station – I would have liked to stay on the train a bit longer.
A few days after the train ride, the same feeling came over me as my morning run took me past a shrine surrounded by a wall of Azalea with a rusty fire hose cabinet as accent. It was beyond beautiful and I just had to stop and take a photo. In Japan I often find places that evoke in me the feeling of time standing still while at the same time presenting a clean beauty of new and old, tradition and modernities, mixed together into a snapshot of my everyday life. I treasure those moments, those places – they make me feel at home in this otherwise so so busy world.
