The only time I've ever been bumped into in Tokyo was by an American.

OK, I'm sort of lying.

But the only time I've even been bumped into, HARD, in Tokyo, was by an American--and I knew it was an American because only assholes like us, from America, can dish out pain like that to people we've never met.

C'mon, buddy. It's a crowded street. No need to shove me.

But moments like that provide for a nice, silent time for reflection on streets where the only silent place is typically in one's head.

Sort of like the second or two of quiet clarity that one has after a perfect train dash--the commuter train home, 11:15 p.m., your train pulls up at platform 1 and the train you want is just a bit behind on platform 4, and when that door opens you tear out of there like your life depended on it, with all the suits and skirts sprinting beside you.

A great race, it is...

And as you descend the stairs for your train you can hear that voice on the P.A. telling you, "The door is now closing." You are at full speed, the passengers in the train are motionless. You put on foot in as the door begins to shut, and haul the rest of your body in afterwards. The door shuts a split-second later with a dull thud, and all is quiet again.

"The next station is Kita-Matsudo," he says.

And as you wipe the sweat from your forhead you reflect in the silence of that train, and you wave goodbye to your comrades who were left on the platform... That perfect dash is symbolic of something, I guess.

Maybe a perfect time, here? No, not that... but, something.

The music beats your ears through your headphones... and you're speeding along... and you're home, descending the same set of stairs you have for the last six months, listening to the same pimp try to sell you the same hookers.

"How about it...? How about it...?" he whistles in your direction.

Not tonight, thanks.

It's all just so surreal sometimes, and though everyone who writes about every foreign travel says, "Oh, man... it was like, so surreal! You know, just, like, surreal," this really is surreal.

A scramble crosswalk in Shinjuku at 4 p.m., silent except for footsteps, when all of a sudden shooting through the air at a million miles per hour comes a tidal wave of gutiars and drums, hitting the back of your head like a mountain tumbling down... and no one flinches.

... as the band assembled on the corner begins their slow, sullen intro and the goth fans nod their heads, you and the other pedestrians walk and listen to that metallic, clanging noise, rocketing nervously, slowly through the streets.

It put some kind of strange, perfect soundtrack to this place, and it was... surreal, man. Like totally completely, surreal, you know, dude?

That music, like slow lightning moving through everybody, just exposing them for what they were, ticking time bombs on a street moving to and fro, somewhere... nowhere... back and forth...

...

"So kind of like the Grand Canyon, right?"

Well, not exactly, I told the officer. It's mostly just flat. There's a lot of farms there.

"Oh, so like Saitama."

Well, no, you see, we don't have any mountains or oceans either. You can see the horizon, I guess.

"That sounds amazing."

And I suppose it is pretty amazing. It's Nebraska, and I described it in all of its glory for the police officer outside Kashiwa station at 12:30 a.m.

He wanted to check our IDs. I guess we looked like trouble.

He ended up talking to us for over an hour about America, college, Japan, President Bush, etc.

A bit different than the police in America, I'd say.

Oh, and they don't carry guns either.