place of memory

If I close my eyes, I can see it. The place from my memory that has become a little hazy...and hazier still as the days go by. This place is Hikone. A small town in Shiga prefecture in Japan on Honshuu. I loved it. I can still taste the air, so clean and fresh right up until the point where you walk past a garden...then ewww, it kinda stinks. The time would have to be early morning, the sun is just coming up, peeking over the mountains and at night, you can see it sink into the lake. I am walking down the back street, must be on my way to the grocery store. I decided to take the scenic route. This is what I see...onions hanging from thick beige twine swinging gently in the morning breeze, you can smell them as you walk by. A grave yard and fresh water poured over the headstone...someone has been here already today...an old discarded bicycle that hasn't been used in ages...it sits in the tall grass becoming a part of the landscape, its light blue color popping out against the green and yellow of the grass as if it was a flower...small compact cars housed in tinier driveways, fuel efficient. The lake is to my right, lined with pine trees and little niches were people are sitting reading, smoking, whatever...the old and the new coming together in a seamless way...beautiful. The color of the road, the greys and browns, the speckles of white, the sound my flip-flopped feet make as my foot hits the concrete.The deep green of the trees, the darkness of the brown in the bark...the bright blue color on the house that kept my interest the entire time I was there...people all around now, it's a little later in the morning....I spent too much time looking at the scenery trying to commit it to memory I guess. I have pictures, of course, who doesn't have them of the places they love? And I do wonder if it is still the same. If I were to go back to that place, would it be still standing in the same time as it was when I left it?