Reading A Wild Sheep Chase has stirred up some serious longing to travel to Japan. Specifically Hokkaido. More specifically, some isolated town with less than 5000 people. Preferably fewer.
I miss train rides. A twelve-hour train ride might sound wretched, but I doubt there was any train ride more memorable than the one Joce and I took up to Sapporo nearly two years ago. There is nothing quite like boarding a train, modern and well-equipped, crowded with people perfectly in sync with the city pace in Tokyo, and switching to a local train, slower and older, in a town whose station will be the only thing you will see of it. An old couple whose wife (or was it the husband? Well, one or the other) sleeps intermittently, like yourself. You read a manga magazine, understanding only snatches but laughing at exaggerated expressions and simple jokes. Your friend sleeps next to you, both of you on seats that could change orientation when the train changes direction in the dead of the night. The old couple awakes, changes their seats, and falls asleep again. At each stop, you lose more of your fellow passengers, until finally, at 6am, you are in a city that is still cold despite it being late spring.
