And the snake came by...

Here's something funny from Erwin.

Good things happen to those who are patient

In many unusual ways, my life seems to be falling into places this month. So many things happened in so little time.

It seems like a lot of things that I have been waiting for (some for years, some for weeks, some for days, some for eternity, some for hours) are fruiting themselves.

Professionally and personally.

In this reflective Ramadan, I am grateful for the many chance that I have to, well, ponder about things.

And witnessing that all the hardships are finally paying off gave me the euphoric feeling of contentment.

Alhamdulillahirrabbil'aalamiin.**

As well as that one phone call I made to the Turkish mosque yesterday, and I discovered that they started Ramadan on September 13 and will have the festive Eid Al-Fitr on October 12. My anxiety (for missing out the morning Eid prayer because I will have to work on October 13-14 weekend) had been banished with that one phone call. All is confirmed, this year I'm doing Ramadan and the Eid the Turkish way.

Hello, Fellow Celebrants, please come to my hut for the festive Eid celebration on October 12! Anyone is welcome, from 3 pm onwards.

And for this, my boss has already approved the day off, too!

As Simon and Garfunkel said it

"...
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you,
All is groovy!
..."

Slow down, you move too fast...

This past four days I've been listening to this one album. Simon and Garfunkel's work really is timeless. Very conducive for a lot of deep thinking.

The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.

Ba da, Ba da, Ba da, Ba da...Feelin' Groovy.

Hello lamp-post,
What cha knowin'?
I've come to watch your flowers growin'.
Ain't cha got no rhymes for me?
Doot-in' doo-doo,
Feelin' groovy.

I've got no deeds to do,
No promises to keep.
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you,
All is groovy.


Yes, I'm feeling groovy!

Also on another note, a fond farewell to the late tenor Luciano Pavarotti. You will be sorely missed.

I made my mother laugh...

... by telling her about the new plant collection in my apartment.



She couldn't understand why anyone would want to display red chillies as a display ornament. To her chillies belong in the grounds, or in cooking.

Never mind to her that her 2nd daughter has got the most un-green thumb in the entire universe (remember the dying rosemary bushes?).

For her to hear that I am picking chillies from my display and using it for cooking was the funniest thing she's heard this year.

Glad to have made you laugh, Mama!

On Mother Taiwan and her breast milk

Today was amusing. I had to pay yet another visit to Shinagawa Immigration bureau to pick up my extended visa for Japan.

One thing I wasn't expecting was running into a certain visa applicant again, and I just began laughing out loud every time I think about it.

Really I don't know this woman personally, but over our last 3 hours 'encounter' earlier this month, I feel like I know some major information that could identify this woman from miles away

The followings are what I know:

- She is from Taiwan

- She speaks heavily accented multiple languages: Mandarin, Japanese and English

- She has a young baby who is still drinking breast milk

- While she was taking care of her visa at the immigration bureau, someone she knows was baby-sitting her baby

- Said babysitter rang her not knowing where the breast milk was stored

- Mother Taiwan strived to explain to this baby-sitter where the milk is located, first in Japanese - no good. English - no good. And then she began to panic in Mandarin - this one particular segment I couldn't follow, as I do not understand a word of Mandarin.

- Mother Taiwan hung up the phone.

- 5 minutes later the phone rang again. This time it seemed to be a different person.

- And then the whole cycle repeated itself. Japanese - no good. English - seemed to be worse, and then she went back to Japanese, this time very slowly. And then she seemed to discover that the fundamental problem is the power of her voice, that it wasn't loud enough. So she began shouting instructions on where to find the breast milk that she had prepared, to the phone. Somebody seemed to get the message.

- 15 blissfully quiet minutes passed. And then her phone rang again. From her reaction I gathered that the babysitters still couldn't find the breast milk. And then she yelled at the phone, "It is on the top shelf of the little fridge in the bedroom! The ones in the kitchen fridge is not breast milk. Top shelf! No, that's in the kitchen! Top shelf of other fridge in the bedroom!"

- 5 minutes later, "No! I didn't lock the bedroom. What? Let me see."

- "I'm telling you the one in the kitchen is not breast milk. It is the one in the bedroom. The key is in the kitchen."

- After 1 hour of back and forth on the telephone, finally the phone didn't ring again. I was itching to ask her, "Did they finally find the breast milk?" Of course I didn't, because by then my turn was up.


Today as I was lining up to be called up for the visa, I ran into Mother Taiwan again. I wasn't paying attention, and truthfully I did not remember her face initially, but as I started standing and waiting, a cell phone rang. One woman picked up and started conversing rather loudly, and I couldn't help overhearing the conversation. After 1 minute, I recognized her voice, her accent, and the topic of importance, "The breast milk is on the top shelf of the little fridge in the bedroom! In the bedroom!"

Don't blame me for my disability to muffle my snort and giggles.

I wish... I WISH that she would buy a cooler where she could store her breast milk and put it on the kitchen table when she's asking someone to babysit. Or at least label the bottle somehow and put it in the kitchen's fridge. Poor baby, s/he must be really hungry while Mother Taiwan persisted in storing her breast milk on the top shelf of the little fridge in the bedroom. In the bedroom!

The death of a clown

My clown died.

Yes, that is the sad truth.

This clown had happily served me and my bicycle for some months now, ever since I purchased him at my bicycle shop.

But now he died.



It happened this one fine morning when I cycled to work to attend a very early morning teleconference. About 10 blocks away from my office, I shifted the gear from 6 to 4, while standing static at the traffic light.
The bicycle made a really loud CLANG! noise as I tried to pedal, but there was no movement generated.

I looked down...

DAMN!

The chain had derailed itself and got dramatically stuck when I tried to wiggle it out.

Lucky for me, this all happened when I was still on top of a hill, the 10 blocks was not that hard to accomplish in 15 minutes without pedaling. And thank goodness for the early morning empty street and pedestrian walks.

Later that day one of my colleague offered to help me fix the bicycle. For ease of maneuvering, Shimo-chan turned the bicycle upside down. It took him about 30 minutes to fix the bike.
When it was done, he turned the bicycle into its upright position and then I looked at it and felt something didn't look quite right.
Mr. Clown... my Mr. Clown was looking all dented and black. Oh no, this didn't look good at all. I tired to honk it, no sound. Just a pathetic whispery 'beep'.
Only then I realized, when Shimo-chan turned the bicycle upside down, he didn't realize that we needed to detach the clown first. Instead, he remained on the bicycle and got violently squashed and murdered during the 30 minutes of service.

Maybe next I should get a sumo guy or something, he might be stronger to endure any bicycle repair violence.

Farewell, dear friend.

Ramadan 1428 Hijra' Mubarak

So I'm here and back again.

The 9 days I was away, a lot of things happened to a lot of places and people:

- The big earthquake in Bengkulu, Indonesia

My condolences.

Also, thanks for the many concerned e-mail and phone calls. My family and loved ones are fine. My hometown is Bandung, in Java. Bengkulu is in Sumatera. Two different islands.

- Ramadan kicked off on September 13, 2007

Ramadan mubarak!
After 7 years of doing it solo, it was so nice to get to start Ramadan with the family at home. Makes such a huge difference.

- Summer persisted at 30C in Tokyo (yikes!), 22C in Bandung (yeah!), and 33C in Singapore (BLECH!)

- A giant flying squirrel liked flying low and bumped his head on my brother's kneecap.

We are hoping sincerely that s/he didn't get a concussion.

- Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe resigned after 1 year of service. Veni, vedi, destroy! Very uninspiring.

- A plane crashed in Phuket, Thailand and killed 88 people.

My condolences.

... and many more.

It's good to be back!

For those who are fasting during Ramadan, "minal aidin wal faidzin, mohon maaf lahir dan bathin. Selamat menunaikan ibadah puasa di manapun anda berada."

Reporting live from Singapore...

Miss me yet?

OK, not much time to put up a proper post yet, but the 7 days in Indonesia was a blast. Got to see my parents, my brother (who was on a coincidental home leave) and some of old friends from school (elementary school, high school). Most important thing of all was that I got to eat some of the food during the short course of the trip.

Also another very special thing was to be able to spend the first few days of Ramadan with the family. It's been 7 years, so it felt so good to have the sahur meal together, as well as the fast-breaking time together, too - eating the traditional Ramadan foods. Bliss.

Now the short 7 days are behind me. I am on the next short stop: Singapore. My brother has been relocated here since earlier this year. So, this stop is deemed necessary. Besides, I need to go buy a nice suitcase at one of the discount shop here.

We just came back from a visit to the Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo and had a BLAST! Not only the usual zoo stuff was going on, but one of the nocturnal giant flying squirrel decided to fly so low tonight and had a flying crash into my brother's kneecap. A handsome animal, yes, but not so bright in the flying department. Ha ha.


*Photo was excerpted from Nature Photo Society

OK... well, it's midnight now and I'm beat. So maybe later this week I will put up a proper post.

Good night.

It came back from hell!

I should pack, but I have a BRILLIANT NEWS!!!

Lady M came by to pick up her tent tonight and accompany me packing (we accomplished nothing in the packing department, btw). And as I was looking for a bag for her to carry her camping stuff, I found my watch!!!
My beautiful watch was MIA since the last bath I took at the Japanese inn on August 19 in Sado island. I had given up hope on that beautiful watch... but it reappeared!!!

Today is a good day.

Alright, y'all... I REALLY must pack now. Bye-Ya!

Buh-bye!

It's time for another 'tootles' message. I am leaving for Indonesia tomorrow morning to see le maman et le papa for a week.

Unlike my usual departure, thanks to the horrid workaholic summer and a spur-of-the-moment decision to go home, this time I haven't had time to actually prepare anything for the homecoming. No gifts had been purchased, no phone calls have been made to organize a get together, only a couple of e-mails sent to some old friends.

You see, normally I will freak out about this - being an avid planner-down-to-the-minute freak that I am, but to my own surprise I am not at all concerned about it this time. All I know is I got my passport, my ticket and that my flight is in the morning, so I should just make sure to get my butt to the airport 2 hours prior. I'll just go ahead with the flow from there.

OK, well, I can't be completely unconcerned about the trip, though. I have to pack.
Oh, crap. I just remember that my luggage is broken from the NY trip. Hmm... alright, must travel light, I'm going to buy a set of nice luggage in Singapore when I visit my kid brother after Indonesia.
With that being resolved... that leaves to finding a duffel bag to carry some of my stuff to Indonesia. I think I have one. If not, well maybe I can run to Don Quijote for a light duffel bag later toniht. They're open till 5 am.

How do I want to go to the airport? Bus or train. I'll decide tomorrow morning when I wake up. Maybe the limousine bus, can't be bothered diving into the sea of people in Shinjuku station at 8 in the morning. OK, bus it is. No need to organize ticket before hand, I'll just do a walk in tomorrow morning. They run every 15 minutes anyway from Shinjuku bus station.

Do I have money? No, I don't. OK, must make a stop at the ATM.
Hang on, I might still have some Rupiah at home. Must check on that.

Do I need coat? Oh you silly Indonesian, it's always summer there. Dry summer. Good.

I guess those are all the essentials. Cool. I'm ready to go.

Let me know if anyone wants postcard from Indonesia, addresses to be e-mailed to taiko.tari@gmail.com.

Don't miss me too much while I'm gone! Be good!

Ding dong, the typhoon is gone!

Yeah, by 2 pm today, suddenly everything looks 10,000 times brighter.

Maybe it is because:
1) The cursed online research has finally wrapped. Now we just need to transcribe it.
2) My report for the research in Sapporo has been finalized at 2 pm on the dot.
3) The violent typhoon no. 9 has finally passed, and Tokyo is now blue-skied and dry

All I have got left is this one usability research over the weekend, but soon after that, come Monday I will be well on my way to I-N-D-O-N-E-S-I-A!
Le maman et le papa, I'm coming home for a week! Oui!
Oh, yes, my frérot is also going to be in town during that week, so I'm looking forward to see him then, too.

... on the topic of typhoon

Living in Japan you're definitely no strangers to some natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, and the likes. You get them quite frequently. Sometimes some are bigger than others (remember this?), sometimes it's just a mild variety of your day to day life.

Typhoon is one of those, too.
Basically the word 'typhoon' in Japanese means 'a big wind'. In reality, not only the wind is whirling violently, it also always comes together with rain.
For the two days typhoon #9 loomed over Tokyo, we had a very strange weather. For 10 minutes it was raining, and then sunny, and then the sky tore open and in came the storm. All the while, the wind was blowing violently. Around 11 pm last night the eye of the typhoon arrived. I was fast asleep by then only to be awaken by loud "CLANG!" out on my balcony. I looked outside and saw the big wind had swung my patio table over the small BBQ. Those things are not light, which is enough to explain just how powerful the wind was.

Come 11 am, suddenly stillness filled the air. The typhoon had passed Tokyo, on its way North to Hokkaido. Leaving Tokyo dry with stunning blue sky.

Always an interesting phenomenon, typhoon is. In fact, one of my favorite past time is to stay snuggled up indoors during a typhoon. Let the wind and the rain go mad, I am indoors drinking a cup of cocoa... or in last night's case, eating a slice of delicious mango.

A ray of mango

One of my friend is an insurance inspector. And these days he's inspecting fruit shipments. Last week he asked me if I liked mangoes. Of course I said "YES!"
So he said, "OK, a mango is coming your way soon!"

My friend is leaving for a short holiday in Bali tomorrow and knowing that he's very busy before his departure, I wasn't expecting to see him nor the mango anytime soon. All my hopes for mangoes had vanished, I have sort of given up on that.

Until suddenly a phone call arrived last night, in the middle of a typhoon, and it was my insurance inspector friend.
"Hey, I'm coming over with your mango. Be there in 20 minutes!"

Next thing I know, at 11 pm at night, with the rain pouring hard outside and the winds blowing noisily, the doorbell rang.

There he was. Holding a mango in his hands, with the biggest mischievous grin pasted on his face, my friend shouted, "Delivery for Taiko Tari!"

Thank you, thank you, Dear Friend. That was terribly sweet of you bringing the mango all the way to my place in the middle of a horrid weather. Thank you!
Now I want le franc and grapefruits, anything in the shipment collection? Ha!

Getting to know your friends

Well, Montchan tagged me. And from experience, I know I am much better off doing what she says. Besides I've been up for a while now. It is 6:28 am and I prefer doing this than worrying about the chronically disturbed online research that is supposed to go live in 5 hours.

So, let's get to the questions, shall we?

(Wow this is a lot of questions!!!!!)


1. What time did you get up this morning?
6:11 am

2. How do you like your steak?
medium rare

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Oceans 13

4. What is your favorite TV show?
CSI Las Vegas, 24, and some sitcoms that are no longer airing (got all the DVDs though!)

5. What did you have for breakfast?
a cup of tea

6. What is your middle name?
Dewi

7. What is your favorite cuisine?
Thai, Indonesian, Japanese

8. What are your favorite chips?
Kettle sea salt and vinegar

9. What is your favorite CD at the moment?
I am going back and forth between Kodo and Save Ferris right now

10. What kind of car do you drive?
I always ask for Toyota Corolla Axio 1500 cc 4WD at the Nippon-Rent-A-Car.
(I live in Tokyo, having a car is a burden, rather than necessity)

11. What is your favorite sandwich?
I don't really like breads, thus ruling out sandwich altogether


12. What characteristics do you despise?
Liars. And people who won't admit their mistakes.

13. What are your favorite clothes?
cargo pants. I have like a dozen pair of them.

14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation where would you go?
Tibet, Peru, Kenya, Botswana and Hokkaido all over

15. Favorite brand of clothing?
Well if we go with my cargo pants collection, that means Abercrombie & Fitch.
The rest will depend on whatever comes my way

16. Where would you want to retire?
Good question... I don't know yet. Maybe Bali?

17. Favorite time of day?
Morning. Especially a sunny morning.

18. Where were you born?
A city called Bandung, in Indonesia

19. What is your favorite sport to watch?
soccer

20. Who do you think will not do this meme?
You know I tagged a few people before and it wasn't very successful

21. Who do you expect to do this first?
Well, I've resolved to no sequential tagging, so... no one

22. Pepsi or Coke?
Not picky, either one is good. Better be Diet Pepsi Twist or Diet Coke.

23. Beavers or Ducks?
Ducks.

24. Morning or Nite Owl?
Morning, of course!

25. Pedicure or Manicure?
I play guitar, can't have a manicure.
Pedicure is heavenly, but haven't had a chance to get one since March.

26. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share?
Meeting Montchan, c-Gen and SML in Paris!!
Vacation to Indonesia next week!!
Free mangoes coming my way from N tonight!!

27. What did you want to be when you were little?
a fighter plane pilot

28. What is your best childhood memory?
careless free days in Bangkok

29. Ever been to Africa ?
not yet

30. Been in a car accident?
yupe, twice. not fun. Not only I almost killed myself, I also got scolded for wrecking mum's car.

31. Favorite day of the week?
Saturday morning (when I have Saturday off)

32. Favorite restaurant?
Esperia in Nishi Azabu, Tokyo
Fungo in Shinjuku, Tokyo
Au temps Jadis in Harajuku, Tokyo
Zorbas in Athens
Pak Chi Met in Bandung
Bakso Akung in Bandung


33. Favorite flower?
Lilies

34. Favorite ice cream?
Haagen Dazs green tea

35. Favorite fast food restaurant?
anything available, but a big fan of First Kitchen's "jagabata" fries!

36. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
never

37. From whom did you get your last email?
My sister

38. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
Apple store or Yodobashi Kamera

39. Bedtime?
try to be in bed by midnite

40. Who are you most curious about their responses to this?
I've got all my answers from Montchan, c-Gen and SML.
So anyone else in my left bar!

41. Last person you went out to dinner with
My bestfriend last night, taking her out for her birthday

42. What are you listening to right now?
Sounds of the street

43. What is your favorite color?
white, marine blue, orange, black, red

44. How many tattoos do you have?
None

45. How many are you sending this meme to?
None

46. Favorite magazine(s)?
travel mag, foods mag, national geographic, SELF, and (don't laugh) People

47. What time did you finish this meme?
6:50

48. How old were you when you got married?
still single, my friend...

49. How old do you want your kids to be when they get married?
gosh, I don't know, whenever they're ready, I suppose!

"Setarbak Kopi"

My sister sent over this precious image the other day. Bet it will bring a smile to your face, especially if you're Indonesian! ;)

Notes from my travel: Hokkaido

Today was tremulous, to say the least. I came in just before midnight on Sunday and was forced to wake up for the busy day today was.
In my list: overcome some crucial multilingual interface problem for an online qualitative research kicking off Wednesday (still not particularly solved yet as my counterpart is enjoying their Labor Day Monday. OK, don't panic, they may read their e-mails tomorrow...), as well as paying a visit to the immigration office to extend my visa (3 hours wait, but everything was in order) and rehearsed for the guitar orchestra (shameful lesson, my teacher was not impressed I didn't have much practice this past week).

Wanting to put the hecticness behind me, now I am sitting down in my living room with a drink in hand, I put Richard Bona's "Scene of My Life"... I decided to empty my thoughts into a pensive I call a blog. My choice wandered to the wonderful day prior where I roamed free on the roads of Hokkaido.

Sunday morning...
With no particular reason, I was awaken at 5:00 am. My body always spots the differences of beds, and I'm guessing it doesn't like the bed in my room at Hotel Doral.　The hotel itself is not bad, and it's a very good deal for 6,500 yen. I tried to　force myself to sleep a little longer, but all those Sapporo beer we had at Sapporo Bier Garten, pushed me awake. Fine. Might as well get an early start. I did have a very ambitious itinerary.

At 6:30 am my colleague from Australia sent an SMS, "ARE YOU AWAKE AND ABLE TO TAKE ME TO SHIN CHITOSE AIRPORT?"

"YUPE! BEEN UP AND SHOWERED FOR A WHILE NOW. SEE YOU DOWNSTAIRS IN 15 MINUTES."

And so we embarked on our journey to Shin Chitose airport. My colleague had an early flight and it was only 58 km anyway from where we were, I was flexible to change my route.

After dropping A off at the airport, I decided to head towards Shiraoi. According to my travel book, Shiraoi is the nearest Ainu preservation museum from Sapporo area.
Realizing that it was only 7:20 am, I decided to take the regular roads. My reasoning for this: well, I did have the whole day to do this exploring, might as well stop at any place I wish to do, rather than rushing here and there with the expressway.

10 minutes on the road, I was so happy I took the regular roads. The streets of Hokkaido are fantastic! Cars can finally be driven as they're meant to be, very unlike in Honshu!



On my way to "Poroto Kotan", I stopped at a lake where swans were lounging around enjoying the morning sun. Some 20 kms away from it I made another stop at the scenic seaside. I spent about an hour lying there in the sun, enjoying the spray of water from the waves breaking while enjoying the horizon. This is really something you don't see everyday in Honshu.



I finally arrived at the Ainu museum of Poroto Kotan (The Big Village) at 10:00. I was happy I went there. The open air museum displayed the rebuilt Ainu houses, live art (some music and dancing), some improved like village talk by the 'chieftain'. It was all good, but I felt that there were some missing information. So for this part I was not particularly impressed. I am more unimpressed when I saw that at a corner of the village I saw that they have put 4 bears in very small individual cages. I felt that was very cruel.





What I enjoyed the most was when I wandered into the actual museum where they displayed stuff from the ancient Ainu days. There I met an elderly gentleman who's working on a part time basis to help explain about the Ainu culture and tradition. We got into talking when he spotted me struggling to read some of the display explanation which were only available in Japanese. He was a wealth of information regarding the Ainu culture! He was a walking encyclopedia indeed - answered all of my little questions with additional extra explanation. We even went as far as comparing the indigenous people of other regions and tried to dig the root where 'indigenous' cease existing and became a race, and what effect civilization have on humanity, culture et al. Very interesting conversations.

After talking for an hour, I realized I had to go. We found me a book in the museum gift shop, only to realize that he's given me much more information than that was listed in the book!
Thank you, Kind Sir! I wish I had asked him his name to remember him by, especially after he drove me to my car that was parked 1 km away (trying to avoid having to pay the steep parking fee by the entrance - I'm cheap when I'm traveling).

After Poroto Kotan, I decided to see Lake Toya, a lake that was formed from a vanished volcano and it was side by side with a new volcano that suddenly appeared about 30 years ago.
When driving to Poroto Kotan were mostly seaside, going to Lake Toya required me to go drive through the farms, mountains and forests. I was the queen of the roads! The streets were empty, my iPod was blaring loud, I sang at the top of my lungs and then I saw a farm with many, MANY, black cows.
I drove some more and I saw another farm with one cow and 2 goats.
Fab!








Arriving in Lake Toya, I saw the lake with the three mountainettes. Very cool.
And then I drove up to Showa Shinzan (the new volcano). Pretty impressive. The volcano is still fuming with sulfur. Got some pretty interesting shots there.







After all that drive, the day had become late. It was already 3 pm and I had to be back at Shin-Chitose airport by 8 pm so I could go home.
Realizing that I had only 3 more hours to spend in leisurely manner before heading back to the airport, my next choice of destination was Noboribetsu. I needed a bath, I figured... Why not go to a hotspring!
Noboribetsu proved to be a bit of a drive down to the South West coast of Hokkaido. From the high altitude driving down was a bit of a challenge. It was really foggy and raining in some parts. Finally found an onsen that was still open for the late afternoon, got cleaned up and relaxed...



I calculated the drive I've done for the day, by that point: 210 km! Not bad!!
After visiting the hell mountain after the bath, I decided to call my adventure for the day to quits. Yeah, I gotta make my flight at 9 pm. So, I drove back the 77 km from Noboribetsu to Shin Chitose airport.

After the Nippon Rent-A-Car dude dropped me off at the airport - realizing that I haven't had a proper meal the entire day, I decided to give myself a treat. You can always count on Japanese airports: they have good restaurants. My choice fell on Sushi Hanabusa. My farewell meal was sea-urchin bowl and some salmon sushis on the side. The sushi-master who was very friendly and kept me company throughout dinner gave me a gift: a small bowl of prime sea urchin. He would not hear me paying it since it was his farewell gift for a person who loves his Hokkaido sea urchin. Thank you, Sir, from the bottom of my heart!





Now, I am here and back again in Tokyo.

With a toast, I am thinking fondly of the kind people I encountered during my short visit in Hokkaido, the beautiful scenic places, the Ainus, the brilliant food, the free spirit drive, the cows, the milk, the cool weather. I dig Hokkaido!

I will be back!