A friend who visited these fair islands for the first time last fall had this to say of his weekend-to-weekend impressions of Japan.
On one hand, he'd come prepared to hoof through countless castles, shrines and temples, and find himself wabi-ed and sabi-ed about like a rubber-legged boxer, punch-drunk on culture.
Yet on the other hand, he'd also expected to be high-teched to smithereens, to be bullet-trained and Game-Boyed and Asimo-ed until his brain began to flash out "memory card full" warnings on his retinas.