I wish you could see this

Ah, Jesus! I wish you could see this. The light's coming up. I've never seen a painting that captures the beauty of the ocean at a moment like this. I'm gonna make you rich, Bud Fox. Yeah. Rich enough that you can afford a girl like Darien. This is your wake-up call, pal. Go to work.

I'm sitting in the lounge of the Conrad Tokyo, looking out onto the Tokyo harbor, sipping an iced tea lightly sweetened with simple syrup. Twenty-six floors below me, slightly to the right, is a shrine in the middle of a small pond that's fed by the harbor waters. Two bridges connect the shrine to the surrounding grounds. Its roof is the pale green of matcha tea in a white cup. Out in the harbor, vessels ranging from small yachts to giant shipping boats trundle through the harbor waters or sit docked with the waves rippling around them like the combed sand of the rock garden at Ryoan-ji.

The boats and shrine provide a sharp temporal contrast to the skyscrapers behind them, which in turn echo the slanted roof of the shrine in their architectural curves of steel and glass. Farther out, red and white-striped cranes, their details slightly fuzzed by the humidity, construct the next generation of homes and workplaces.

I promise myself that next time I visit, I will bring a camera.