By avoiding museums, fotospots and bar districts, mostly, although I did have fun there too, I learned about how the shakuhachi used to be an instrument for meditation used by zen monks, heard from another person how those are kind of cynical commentators of society, had the conversation about what it means to be Japanese I wrote about earlier, was taught about japanese urbanism, heard of death of family members, was introduced to friends, saw how japanese kids learn to eat with chopsticks, sat in a car that drove on the wrong side of the road, saw the most stunning sunset of my entire life and this is just the snowy peak of the mysterious volcano of thought and experience that was my trip to Japan. By talking, drinking coffee and dining, by sleeping in guest houses and strolling on beaches, by learning the language and accepting to be taken for an idiot who does not know etiquette nor vocabulary, by going shopping, drinking, oversleeping my Japan has been this dense beautiful collection of people who wanted nothing but to share and connect and the skyscrapers and pokemon were a nice touch. I'm exagerating here, the skyscrapers are my lifeblood and I have goosebumps just thinking about Shibuya in the rain. Doing things the slow, atypical way is increasingly interesting to me, it might even let me learn more than ever before. Sure, I wasn't in the Hokusai museum, but I know where he drew some of his 36 views on Mt. Fuji in Kanagawa and how the place looks today. And today his prints are as Japanese as Klimt is Austrian anyway, not so much, when it comes down to it.