Our trip is at its end.

We arrived in Austin last night. Today has been one of jet lag and travel recovery misery. Jet lag is part of the yin-yang of international travel. The enjoyment of spending time with your granddaughter is balanced by the pain you suffer once home.

Our last Shinkansen ride brought us back to Tokyo, this time to Ueno station. UT (the University of Tokyo) is located near there, in the Meguro District. Cassady’s apartment is nearby as well. We stayed in a roykan within walking distance of her, and on Saturday we visited the Komaba campus where she will be studying the next two years. UT has five major campuses, with Komaba housing Arts and Sciences.

Although I have traveled extensively in Japan, I do not profess to have deep insight into the culture or the people. As a westerner (and a Texan, for God’s sake), Asia is blithely enigmatic.

There are certainly cultures in the world that strive to remain apart. The Japanese, for all of their western trappings, do not have to work hard to remain distinguishable. The radical differences in language are, in part, responsible. Although English is commonly seen in Japan, most of it is related to the perplexing English tag lines, slogans, and non sequiturs that Japanese marketing whizzes concoct. Otherwise, Japan is for the Japanese.

Hiroshima.

The name is synonymous with the A-Bomb. The two are interlocked, interchangeable, forever connected by the one ghastly day.

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 am, the atomic war age began. Since that moment there has not been a day that “nuclear” (even when mispronounced) wasn’t perched on the lips of the world. I would carve up human time into BB (before the bomb), and AB (after the bomb). We are living in the year 65 AB.

Today I am 60. In Japan men wear a red vest on this day (I will make do with a green shirt). Last night we kissed my fifties goodbye, and this morning I am contemplating geezerhood. As a child I thought of my grandfather as being ancient, yet he died at only 64. Last night my granddaughter reminded me that “you are only as old as you feel.” True, except that you are only as old as your body allows you to feel. Age is both body and soul.

We are in Nara, in the Mikasa roykan within the Nara Koen (Park). We are well above the valley that holds the city, surrounded by forest, deer, and silence. Given the tourist bustle of Kyoto, I welcome this peaceful interlude.

Before I address Hiroshima, let’s return to toilets. My granddaughter’s camera crapped out in Hiroshima, so I promised to buy her a new one. We sauntered over to Big Camera (like Best Buy in the states), and she quickly found one to her liking. While waiting to pay, I noticed the techie toilet display on the wall next to the checkout. I know that many of you are not buying into this Japanese toilet thing, but take a look at this one wall.

If you are my age you grew up with the bomb. As a child I would peer out the window of my Dad’s Chevrolet as we drove to my grandparent’s home in Paris (Texas) and wonder if any of the summer clouds billowing in the sky signaled an attack (Dad! That one looks like a mushroom!). In October 1962, at Landrum Junior High in Houston, we drilled daily during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The siren would howl, and we would drop under our desks and cover our heads in expectation of the big blast.

Let me begin with an apology. You did not expect an article on toilets, I know. But after Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I decided to interject some humor, some levity, before I address issues about which it is impossible to laugh.

The Japanese know high-tech. But of all of their technological contributions, nothing comes close to their bathrooms.

Here is my first example. I travel constantly, and probably spend 100 nights or more annually somewhere in some hotel working on some project. Among my pet peeves is the bathroom mirror that fogs after I shower and before I can shave. Invariably I am scrambling for a dry towel, then trying to wipe away the moisture before it reappears. Of course it fogs again as soon as I place razor on skin.

America imports oil from Saudi Arabia, cars from Japan, wine from France, shrimp from Viet Nam, coffee from Costa Rica, jalapeños from Mexico, and even toothpicks from China. We have perfected consumption, and the world feeds our insatiable appetite for stuff.

In return, America exports pop culture. No matter where you might wander, blithely expecting to be swallowed in a culture unlike your own, your first meal likely will be accompanied by the viral voices of Michael Jackson or Lady Gaga.

We began the day in Naha with lattes, a pastry translated as “the bomb,” and a skip across the parking lot to a tiny religious site tucked in by the port. As part of the Ryūkyū kingdom until “assimilated” by Japan during the Meiji, there are celebrated remnants of Ryūkyū religion here. However, my uneducated eye can’t tell Ryūkyū from Buddhist from Shinto, although the differences between these Okinawan shrines and those on Honshu are noticeable. We came upon a group of older people placing offerings at the shrine, with the woman reading from a printed script. Apparently there is an attempt here to resurrect the Ryūkyū culture as we see in Hawaii with its native resurgence.