Just a stroll

I feel the concrete of the Tokyo sidewalk hard against my step. It is concrete like any in the world, yet it is steeped with the byproducts of Japanese habit and custom and history. I suppose if I knelt down and sniffed at it, it would smell the same as concrete anywhere else. But it would be different. Something imperceivable would be in that smell. Imperceivable, yet I would detect it as an essence rippling through that part of me that was brought up here.