We left Kyoto through the shrine gates and landed on an Island that's closer to Paradise than anything we've ever seen. And it was earlier than it was when we had left! So we had two Sundays. To the rest of the world, one day had passed. But to us (and everyone on our flight), 2 days had passed. Thus, we embodied the twin paradox and discovered Einstein was right. It first occurred to us that maybe we could live in this Sunday limbo forever, going back and forth across the dateline. And we considered how much we would pay to pause time eternally. But then we realized that it would all be ruined once we crossed the dateline backwards - we would be going forward in time. One twin only looks younger to the twin who stays.
But it was our groundhog day in more ways than one. Yesterday in Kyoto we saw rock gardens and lotus blossoms. We took off our shoes to enter temples. Yesterday in Kauai we saw a rock garden at the airport. A sign in a coffee shop in Kapa'a bore the Kanji letter for "peace." Our B&B required us to remove our shoes upon entering. We passed a restaurant called the "Blossoming Lotus" (which we ate at tonight--Monday, really, but Tuesday for us. . . not bad, although slightly too filling).
We had our second chance. Did we blow it?
The looking glass:
Us on our way through the looking glass:
Yesterday was our groundhog day.
We left Kyoto through the shrine gates and landed on an Island that's closer to Paradise than anything we've ever seen. And it was earlier than when we had left! So we had two Sundays. To the rest of the world, one day had passed. But to us (and everyone on our flight), 2 days had passed. Thus, we embodied the twin paradox and discovered Einstein was right. It first occurred to us that maybe we could live in this Sunday limbo forever, going back and forth across the dateline. And we considered how much we would pay to pause time eternally. But then we realized that it would all be ruined once we crossed the dateline backwards - we would be going forward in time. One twin only looks younger to the twin who stays.
But it was our groundhog day in more ways than one. Yesterday in Kyoto we saw rock gardens and lotus blossoms. We took off our shoes to enter temples. Yesterday in Kauai we saw a rock garden at the airport. A sign in a coffee shop in Kapa'a bore the Kanji letter for "peace." Our B&B required us to remove our shoes upon entering. We passed a restaurant called the "Blossoming Lotus" (which we ate at tonight--Monday, really, but Tuesday for us. . . not bad, although slightly too filling).
We had our second chance. Did we blow it?
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