5:20pm:
Today I also got to experience nature's belt. For pants that are waist-high it’s hips, but those are impossible to find now. These pants tend to fall down a bit but have stayed up very well – they’re glued in place with sweat. Which means I can’t pull them up that last little bit but also that they don’t fall down any further. I had planned to be back by 5pm but dawdled in Nara too long. I called Alex before getting on my beloved shinkansen with smoking car to let him know I’d be back 6:30ish. It’s that magic hour for the rice fields right now. It’s not sunset yet but the sun is low enough for the sky to have the faintest golden cast. I think it’s only in the largest cities and only in parts of them, where you don’t see green hills on the horizon not truly masked just a touch hazy from the mist.