It's a small world after all

"It's amazing," I said to Grant as we walked through a part of Yokosuka we had never seen nor even knew existed, "how adaptable people are."

"Humans are like cockroaches," he said. "They can live anywhere."

Today we traveled two train stops over in search of a park that known for its 1000 cherry trees. For the next week or so it's cherry blossom season here.

The view at this park is supposed to be spectacular. I wouldn't know since we never made it. Whether the day was more or less of an adventure because of that is up for debate. You might recall the old not the destination but the journey proverb.

Leaving the train station we headed in the direction we thought the park might be, based on my memory of one Japanese-labeled map I saw on the Internet the other night. We walked past some pretty strange buildings: a square glass cube in the middle of a traditional looking neighborhood, a pink two-story with a statue in an alcove, and a commercial building only three feet wide. The last is common here, but they strike us every time we see them.

We wandered for hours, just looking at Japan, at Yokosuka. At the top of the hill we found a beautiful grocery store, the upscale shiny-floor kind with isles of fresh fruit and gourmet items. That was strange. Most grocery stores in Japan are in the basements of shopping centers. They're small and pretty basic, with linoleum floors and fluorescent lighting.

On the other side of the hill we found an explanation. Without meaning to, we had wandered into the ritzy part of town. The houses were wide. They had yards, real yards with grass and flowers and a place to keep the dog. Some even had parking spaces.

In a country the size of California supporting 2 percent of the global population, space is the ultimate luxury.

We wandered on until the highway stopped us. Then we turned around and headed home. No park for us.

I answered Grant's cockroach comment with, "Remember the first day we went out on town together. We were fascinated everything was amazing. Now we walk around saying well if we find something interesting ..."

I have moved from one side of the world to the other. But my personal world is still very small. Ask me where I live and I'll tell you Yokosuka, Japan, but really I live in a tiny piece of Yokosuka, extending only eight or ten streets in any direction.

It makes me wonder - I lived in Maine for the first 18 years of my life. What did I miss?

I leave you today with a quote from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, "Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected."