The Waiting Room
A few weeks ago I needed to go to the hospital to have a CT scan. I went to the front desk and checked in, then took a seat in the waiting area. There were maybe 10-15 people also waiting for their turn. As I sat there, I began to notice the people waiting. There were people from at least 4 or 5 different countries. Some of the people were elderly, some middle-aged, some were young, even a baby in…
The Gathering
The phenomenon is called “shikadamari“ in Japanese. A loose translation would be, “deer gathering spot.” A large population of free-roaming deer live in and around the Japanese city of Nara, spending most of their time in the city park. Every summer evening at around 6:30, over 600 deer gather in the same spot for the same amount of time. The deer quietly come together, sit down for about an hour, then stand back up and disperse to different parts of…