I walked to the shinkansen terminal in Hiroshima way too early, so I had plenty of time to lean against a wall and people watch until my train arrived. Tourism is huge in Hiroshima, so there were peoples from all over the world, including about 40 Indians who seemed to be traveling together; at any rate, they kept walking up and down the boarding platform together, all pulling their own wheelies. The men were mostly in western dress, with only a few in kurtas. The women, on the other hand, were all in saris except one, a strikingly trim and stylish middle-aged woman in long, black slacks and western haircut with a dashing touch of gray. I knew that she would speak English, so when she walked by for about the fourth time I said, "Did you just come here for the exercise?"
She considered me for a moment, then said in the most regal of British accents: "I was unable to go to the gym this morning, so I came here. I must earn my lunch, you know."
"Enjoy!" I shouted after her. But what really got my attention was the perfume that the Indian women were wearing. It had not occurred to me until that point that you just don't smell perfume or cologne here--either that or it's too subtle for this western nose. That is not to say that Perfume is not popular here, it's just that it's not a fragrance: it's a girl group that spends all their time on the street-sized screens of metropolitan Japan:
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