We visited Tsukuba this Sunday.
The train ride was expensive yet fun. After the last agglomeration of houses disappeared, the landscape started screaming ‘Midwest’. Excuse me, ma’am, is this Highway 67? I think we got lost on our way to St. Louis…
The fun was suddenly truncated when we found ourselves exploring the University’s neverending campus and desolation became evident. Neon green slime bubbled on the surface of what seemed to have been a fountain decades ago while a lonely cherry tree was stripped from its unusually early beauty by the dirty brick buildings surrounding it and the undeserving reflection on the turbid pool where carps made their way through brown curls dancing like solid threads of cigarette smoke.
And then, the dorm. “Do not walk this path on your own at night,” was our welcome sign into the dormitory area, which felt like an abandoned world in sepia. A landscape drenched in monochrome sadness, an atmosphere of utter despondency, the last stage of a slow nightmare set inside a vintage photograph of naked trees and still waters.
I need to take some serious measures if I don’t want my head to fall into the darkest pits of depression after moving into the dorm.