Japan, Part IV
On my first trip to Japan twenty years ago, the family travelled to an island in the Inland Sea that a Japanese friend of Dad’s had recommended. It was a memorable day, partly because we nearly missed the last boat off the island at the end of it. We would have had to spend the night outdoors, because there wasn’t much on the island except a museum.
It was a great museum, though. It was full of samurai armour—suits and suits of it, all segmented and lacquered like polished carapaces. And they sold a beautiful book of the collection, full of full-page photographs. Which is the other reason I remember the place: because I didn’t buy that book, even though I wanted it. It was twenty bucks, which was like spending about seventy or a hundred today. I just couldn’t justify it—not at the beginning of a long trip where I might want to buy other things with my modest savings.