Two lines in Kyoto

I'd been tired since Tokyo, and off coffee, which for me is like a fish going off water. On our first morning in Kyoto I couldn't face the breakfast, which at a ryokan is eleven small dishes and a grilled fish looking at you, and Teo, who notices nothing, noticed.

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So I went to the pharmacy on the corner, and stood in front of the shelves for a long time, and pointed, and the pharmacist, who spoke no English and needed none, put the box in a paper bag with great tact and a small smile, and said what I later found out was congratulations, perhaps.

There were two lines. I sat on the edge of the cedar bath and looked at them for a long time, and then I went and woke Teo, who said, 'Is it the fish?'

Nara, the next day

We'd planned a day trip to Nara, where a thousand deer wander the park and the temples and bow to you for biscuits. We went anyway. A deer bowed to me and I burst into tears, and Teo bought the deer a second biscuit out of gratitude, and the deer ate the bag.

We didn't tell anyone until we got home. For the rest of the trip it was a secret between us and a pharmacist in Kyoto, and it was the best secret I've ever kept. That was Pip, by the way. She was the size of a sesame seed and she was already making me miss breakfast.

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