Travel to live, travel to learn, travel to share, travel to teach

Tokyo: one meal at a time.
When I arrived in Tokyo, coffee was essential to adjust to the 12 hour time change. Luckily, a café was only a few blocks away from where I was staying in the Kameido District in Tokyo. Leaving each morning to explore the city, a quick stop at the café also helped me adjust to the way of life in Japan. Order and discipline defined the people of this city, complemented with deep courtesy.
A cup of tea—sometimes green, sometimes brown—a cigarette, and the newspaper. This was the routine of a local man, a regular at the café that sometimes glanced at the world beyond the Kanji and Hiragana. He didn’t take much time to drink his tea. This was odd to me at first, since I enjoy sipping my coffee, savoring it as it cools, until the last sip almost loses its heat entirely. The steam of his tea did not slow him at all. He did not wait for cooling to savor the tea. It was better hot. I turned my thoughts inward and adopted this new custom that everyone here followed. I quickly finished my coffee and made my way to the local railway station.
In each district’s rail station were magazine stands, cafés, and sometimes restaurants. On a limited budget of money and time, I opted for the snacks at a magazine stand before exploring the city. The thought of health was not on my mind when I stopped here. There was a small cooler section with sandwiches and rice balls. I bought one of each, but very curious about the rice ball. I stowed them in my bag and forgot about them until hunger halted my exploration.
I stopped on a bench and opened my bag. The sandwich was on top, so I grabbed it first. Tuna on white bread. A cautious bite told me it was OK. Several bites later, I wished I bought more than one. Wasabi improved the condiments on it, eliminating the need for water. My tears and saliva did the work instead. This freshness and taste explained why the man in the café gulped his tea: their taste and culture comes from the sea. My journey had just begun.