My wife and I wandered around downtown Tokyo, shuffling through our jetlag. It was Saturday night and it felt like mid-afternoon. 2pm? But it wasn’t the jetlag. And it wasn’t that siesta effect you get in super hot-time-in-the-summer cities — midnight and the locals and tourists out in search of gelato in paper cups. It wasn’t the brightness of the streets, though they were bright — lit by white signs sporting watch faces and serifed logos.
It was more of a feeling things thing. A knowing things thing. A nameless mystery. A turn-but-you-can’t-quite-spot-him sensation. It was night. But it was also day. And still partly night, though somewhat not.
And then we realized: It was the babies.
Tokyo baby enjoying the nightlife.
There were babies everywhere. I started snapping pictures — left, right, spinning around. Too many babies? Or just enough? What were these babies doing up? Smiling babies. Sleepy babies. Sleepy smiling parents. And even jaunty parents, I’m pretty sure, popping soft wheelies because why not.
We saw dozens of nighttime Tokyo babies. Here’s just one more to prove my case.
There was a baby parade going on, strolled by moms, by dads, stopped waiting on corners for little red men to turn green. And it beat back the night, this baby parade. Because it couldn’t be night in our hearts, we realized, no matter how late or how dark, with all these babies on the move.
