nikko pt. 1: long shadows

maybe you can hear the hint of worry in my voice.

i know for many people, this might not seem terribly adventurous. but we were in nikko -- two hours outside of tokyo -- and i was an hour bus ride from the nikko train station where i'd left rob and kimberly, and two hours by foot after that. they went to see shrines, i went on a hike to a waterfall.

it was a great hike, but there's that moment when you don't know for certain you're going to make it back from the hike before dark. once you do, you have to get on the right bus, to make it to the right train, to take you "home" to tokyo. i'd already gotten on the wrong bus to get to the trail. (at one stop, the driver turned and looked at me, sitting all the way in back, and said four of the six english words he knew -- "where are you going?" when i told him, "lake chuzenji", he shook his head and said the other two -- "wrong bus".)

all in all, it was a fantastic day. but moments of small desperation tend make it all the more real.