You can never experience this with Google Maps, honoring the dead in Tokyo, Japan

It's hard to tell on a Google map what a place really is, how it feels,

Who is there, what they are doing and so we go to see for ourselves.

We go to read, to learn and to explore, and to respect their grief, their losses,

In spite of our own, in addition to our own, we see the Japanese bowing 

At the entrance to the shrine which holds the spirits of all those who have died 

In war, protecting their country, their people. 

We watch them, and do the same, bowing at the entrance, and clapping twice,

Before turning away.  There is no one clapping on Google Maps.  

there is no one walking away, then suddenly turning back to face the shrine

Again, and again, under the gateway that reaches hundreds of feet into the sky,

Bowing, or to tell us that people are mourning their losses in the building over there,

The one that says "serious prayer only", no, gaggles of tourists are not welcome there.

Google maps does not show the etched lithograph of a photograph of Tokyo after 

300 B2 bombers flattened the area, the area where we were standing yesterday.

So, to those who say that travel is not needed anymore, that there are no surprises,

Google Maps can never show humanity, our tears, our joy, those standing to honor their

Dead, grieving their dead, and moments later celebrating today, chocolate ice cream dribbling

Down the chin of the small girl as she grips the leg of her mother.