Don George

I stood there, battered by the raw power and sheer magnificence of a land I'd never known

As we sat in the sun, drinking tea made from maple leaves (seasoned with apple and apricot), as we meandered through the 19th Century European park that leads toward the tiny lane on which our favourite tatami tea house is hidden _ Don had come here ten months earlier after his Japanese father in law died - I thought how distinctive Don__ relaxed and responsive spirit can be. I__ walked these same streets with other friends for twenty seven years now, many of them celebrated travelers; they__ fired questions at me, shot out theories, spun this notion about Japan and that judgment.Don, by comparison, hung back. He seemed eager to take in as much as he possibly could. He didn__ have agenda or preoccupation, and in that regard appeared to rejoice in the rare traveler__ gift of allowing the day and the place to take him where they wanted him to go.