I was in Yoshinoya today, after having finished my one lesson in Matsudo and at one point, for about a minute there was near complete silence. There’s nothing unusual about it but it got me thinking (which I seem to do a lot) about how busy and noisy life in Japan seems to be. I was thinking about when I actually experience silence and it’s not something that happens often.

My room has the constant drone of the air conditioner at the moment, the background noise thats accompanied by the continual flow of traffic outside and the whiring of the laptop fans. Added to this is the noise of the Cicadas when the nights are warmer and the tapping of keys on the keyboard. The journey to work has its obvious noises; traffic, crows, people and trains. This is usually drowned out by the music blaring on my MP3 player as I make my way to work. Work itself is a perpetual barrage of noise, from other students, chimey background music or phones ringing.

The only place that seems to be a refuge from all the noise are temples and shrines, no matter where they are located they seem to shelter the space from outside noise and so are very restful and quiet. The shrine near my flat is very close to a main road, but somehow none of this noise permeates through the trees.

As I was saying before, to be in Yoshinoya and to experience a near silence was very strange.

I’ve been breaking many a silence recently, given the fact that I’m just starting to learn how to play the guitar. I’ve been lent a guitar to practice with and I’m currently trying to learn the chords for Oasis’ “Wonderwall“. If I have any neighbours above me (they’re so quiet I’m not sure!) then I guess they are berating a break in the traffic noise by a badly played guitar!

I want to say Happy Birthday to Joanne, thanks for reading my blog, have a great day and Good Luck in Kenya. If you want to check out a blog from Kenya, click here to visit Joanne’s!

mata ne!    またね！