Thursday, June 6, 2013

Fireflies in the Night

I am still suffering a bit from jet lag but this morning I woke up even earlier than my usual seven a.m. and began my day around five.  With an encroaching rainy season on the horizon, I am ecstatic every morning when I wake up and look out my window to find one more sunny day.  This morning when I woke up, I opened the curtains and was shocked at how bright it was outside.  Japan is truly the "Land of the Rising Sun," with the sun rising at 4:30 in the morning! However, despite the early sunrise, Tokyo is a bit chilly in the morning and at nights (although it is plenty hot during the day).  It was on a more chilly and windy night than usual that I discovered you can access the rooftop of the building I live in.

As I quickly scaled the access ladder to the roof, I was struck by the multitude of lights all around me.  Tokyo is the biggest city in the world in terms of both population and land area.  It makes perfect sense that I would be bathed in the lights from the neon restaurant signs, the flashing red airplane guides on skyscrapers, or the occasional light left on from a condominium apartment, but the sight still surprised me.  I honestly have never seen so many lights or so much proof of human life before.

I wish I had brought my real camera with me to the roof but all I had was my rented Japanese flip-phone (which is actually pretty neat despite having no touch screen).  The picture above can't even begin to describe what I saw around me but it is proof of that chilly night I stood on the roof of my building, looked out, and was mesmerized by the flashing firefly-like lights around me, so different from the fireflies back home, but somehow still magical all the same.

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