Oh my god, you’re still here. Sorry, don’t take offense at my shock. I just thought you moved on. Also, don’t take this the wrong way, I’m glad you didn’t. Unless you hold it against yourself for staying. But maybe don’t? There’s a reason for …….

Anyway, thanks for coming. I wasn’t sure I’d continue for a while there. Life gets thick. You know.

If this is the first time finding yourself on this blog, don’t be alarmed, not too much anyway. It gets better, I hope. Piece of advice, try to avoid the tendency to make sense of it. If it grabs you, let it. If it doesn’t, go look out a window.

If you made it to the bottom of my last blog, the sharpest of you may have noticed I too look out windows. And you may find yourself behind the pane of a large window. And you may find yourself in a beautiful place, with beautiful people. And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?

Same as it ever was, we took the bus from New Chitose airport into the city. Maybe it was all the Pachinko Palaces we passed, but it felt like we’d been re-routed through Vegas. Final stop: Sapporo Prince Hotel.

Photo courtesy of someone else. Hospitality to the max. Walking in and quickly ushered to the front desk ahead of others waiting, were we just shown preferential treatment? Why? I grasp at a theory and bury my head in the shame. Did they notice? Did they mind? I fear the answers and can’t bring myself to look up.

We drop our bags in our rooms and go back out for Hokkaido ramen.

Super oishii. Worth the wait, and the icy walk. None of us fell, that night anyway.

On the way back, we found ourselves in another part of the world. We found ourselves living in a well-lit winter.

Same as it ever was, illumination above ground.

Blue light playing pranks.

We thought we had all the time in the world.

But then, at the stroke of ten

The generators shut off leaving us with this final photo of the night.

The next morning instead of watching paint dry, I watched water flowing above ground.

Nerd out with me. For those who can read, that’s Drip Coffee. For those who can’t, bdmcgkfndbsjfmndkf,pjh.

Perched beneath the fold-out pour over rest a pair of stir sticks supporting crunchy pocket chocolate. It was supposed to melt and mix as the coffee dripped. Let’s not focus on the outcome. Instead, let’s just keep our eyes open.