Arrival in America!

America!  It's so great to be back.  California is as beautiful as I'd remembered.  On the way over, my plane flew near a snow-covered Mt.Fuji and along Highway 1 in California, two incredible memories from the past.  America is bigger, less organized, less planned.  Flying over I started to think of the beauty of the theory of America.  It's disordered, but it seems to be so for the sake of trying to accommodate so many different people.  So many people are here because their parents moved here from another country, or they themselves did.  It is such a mix of different classes and cultures, rituals and expectations learned through disparate generations.  It would be impossible to force them all into one common way of living, to abide by strict cultural and societal rules as there are in Japan.  It would alienate them, make it impossible for them all to exist together.  And so in lieu of efficiency, common courtesy, and cleanliness there is acceptance.  And of course, even this is compromised as everyone tries to learn their way through this incredible experiment of a country.  But the idea is there.  It's trying.  And it's good to be back.

Mt. Fuji in the distance