I am a sincere Japanophile and have been for most of my adult life– from Zen (which I briefly practiced but stopped because I felt like a phony during the group meditations) to wabi-sabi (my all-time favorite spiritual aesthetic concept) to Japanese package design to zakka to the food, architecture…even that Scarlett Johansson scene in Lost in Translation in which she wanders around from temple to cherry-blossom to eatery doing just about everything I’d like to do. read more