It is not violence that best overcomes hate — nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury. 

Charlotte Bronte, “Jane Eyre”

8 October 2023

• 10:00-11:30 Marimo festival: lecture
• 13:00-15:15 Marimo festival: boat tour
• Onsen in the afternoon (2h)

Marimo Festival: Lecture

I woke at 8:30 and read the news. The new war in Israel was the deadliest in years. What was going on with the world?

At 9:30 I headed out, first of all to the French bakery I’d run into yesterday. Every single pastry looked amazing. I settled on a small lemon roll, since I wasn’t hungry.

The Ukrainian girl from Kyushu I’d met in Okunoshima in March texted me about the war. Funny how three Ukrainian girls were the only people I’d met on this trip who had done so.

Between 10:00-11:30, I attended the Marimo lecture at the Akan tourist hall. The Ojiisan had saved me a seat. I felt like I was sitting in class at a Japanese university, since the lecture was held in Japanese, I was the only foreigner, and the lecturer used a lot of complex, scientific words.

The lecture ended with an invitation for everyone to touch a huge ball of Marimo inside a water tank. It was soft, and the inside firmer than expected.

Then sun had come out. A fine day for today’s next activity.

But first, the Ojiisan introduced me to another man who worked at the tourist hall, ran a hotel in the village, and managed the local ski resort. He treated me to lunch – tempura shrimp chlorella soba (coloured green) at a busy restaurant run by obaachans – and informed me about the position.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas, he would have me operate snow machines at night, preparing the ski resort for the season. Lake Akan was colder than other areas in Hokkaido – in February I’d experienced minus 15-20 degrees – but received less snowfall.

January and February would see me working day shifts at the ski resort’s ticket counter.

March onwards, at the lake’s tourist information center.

The latter position enticed me, because working at a tourist information in Japan had been my goal for several months now, with all the information I’d accumulated about faraway places, and the 27 prefectures I’d visited in four months, and the enjoyment I’d been deriving out of meeting travellers and creating itineraries for them.

The former position, night shifts at a ski resort, less so.

I learned that the Ojiisan was a 71 years old Akan native, and realized he was probably Ainu. Ainu bone structure was wider, their complexion darker, their bodies less delicate. They did not seem Japanese at all.

Marimo Festival: Boat Tour

After lunch, he lent me boots from the ryokan. We returned at 13:00 to the tourist hall, where an Icelandic family had joined the group from the lecture. They’d come to scour Akan as a filming location for an Icelandic feature film. The only other lake in the world where round Marimo grew – in Iceland – had become too polluted for their cultivation.

Being the only other foreigner, and Israel sounding similar to Iceland in Japanese, everyone thought I was Icelandic.

A small bus drove us for thirty minutes though the bumpy forest to the opposite bank of Akan, where a river flowed into the lake. The temperature difference between the two bodies of water was no less than ten degrees, a phenomena important for Marimo cultivation. Algae permeated the water of both.

With neither wind today nor clouds, we enjoyed optimal conditions for a boat tour. Using cones lined with magnifying glass, I spotted a myriad of Marimo on the floor of the lake. 

Back ashore, we stumbled upon one of the biggest Marimo in existence, twenty centimetres in diameter, fissured and hollow in the center, but firm and squishy on the outside. Every Marimo-related sight and touch today was rare.

At 14:20, we started back, seeing deer prance in the forest, and stopping along the way at another bank where houses had once stood, including the Ojiisan’s mother’s.

The bus dropped us off at the tourist hall in 15:15, culminating the first day of the festival.

New Akan Hotel Onsen

With my afternoon as clear as the sky, I returned to New Akan Hotel’s onsen, an indulgence from February, where I’d met a Singaporean guy and made my first friend on this trip.

The hotel was as fancy as I’d remembered it. They still served that delicious purple grape and berries juice by the onsen for free, and also a free matcha ice cream.

Five minutes each at two indoor baths, and it was time for the main event. The rooftop rotenburo.  

It was a gigantic, mixed-gender infinity pool overlooking the lake. The only onsen I’d worn a bathing suit to. The water felt plain and the bathing suits made this feel like a regular pool. Yet the view was unbeatable. The clear lake, mountains on either side, a person fishing alone far in the distance. 

Couples all around me and families laughing. Sad piano music. I watched the sun set behind a mountain and grew lonely.

I approached a half-Japanese, half-white family. The dad was from Boston and the mom from Obihiro, where they were currently based.

We left at 17:10 once the sun set. I rested until 18:00 with juice and ice cream in my belly, intending to go to bed early after sleeping 5-6 hours every night for the past week.

Back in my ryokan, Horizon finally answered me.

She was disappointed in all the international friends she’d made in a year of traveling the far east, who were now silent about the war.

“It’s just that there’s no faith in anyone,” she texted. “It’s sad. But you only find out this way.”

I told her I was hurt by my close friends, who hadn’t even texted me. Ukrainian girls I’d chatted with for a few minutes had immediately reached out.

“I don’t care about the text message, I care about them spreading information about the situation,” Horizon said. “It sounds like a trifle, but the Palestinian side is more vocal than the Israeli, and it creates damage. I’m very disappointed in a lot of friends I’ve made on this trip… but it’s good to know.”

I agree with her. It was good to know who would stand by me in times of war.

Some would say I was expecting too much of people. That they didn’t owe my anything, let alone inquiring after my wellbeing. Horizon had received plenty of such messages, yet this only aggravated her anger. Her friends asking her if she was okay – of course she wasn’t. She’d returned to war in Israel after an entire year in the east, after a months-long relationship that had now become long-distance. The least foreigners could do was educate people abroad who lacked awareness of the situation, or thought that Israelis had deserved to die.

Meanwhile, I simply wanted to feel that my friends were there. Only the two Ukrainian girls I’d met in Japan had been maintaining close contact with me, asking questions about the war, making suggestions, expressing their rage and concern.

I agreed with Horizon: most people just didn’t care.

After talking to Horizon, the Kyushu Ukrainian, who had arrived in Japan on a refugee visa, advised me to look into this matter.

I found this preposterous. I was no war refugee. No victim in need of an asylum. But it was true. If I went back to Israel now, I would be in danger. Not in a danger comparable to those living by the border or fighting in the military, but compared to Japan, a danger nonetheless. 

At 20:00, the French girl from Asahikawa texted me she’d arrived to the lake, and met a French lady at a local restaurant, on my list for this visit, for dinner.

Five minutes later, I joined them.

The restaurant was small and packed. The Icelandic family was there. I ordered a fatty salmon sashimi with rice and miso soup.

The girl was nice and gentle, with a soothing voice. She turned out to be 35, even though she looked a decade younger. The old French lady who she’d met through Facebook was a bit… less fun.  

I walked them each to their different hotels at 21:30. The temperature was 2 degrees. So cold, that my nose and mouth froze.

Why had I left my big coat at Saki’s apartment in Tokyo.

For the umpteenth time, I went to bed later than I would’ve liked to. The second day of the war in Israel was even worse: a war this catastrophic hadn’t happened since October 1973, when another attack in the early morning of a holiday had caught everyone by surprise.

The deadliest massacre in Middle Eastern history. Tiredness aside, at least I was safe and sound.

Today’s highlights: touching Marimo; seeing Marimo inside the lake; the view from the rooftop rotenburo; grape and berries juice and matcha ice cream after an onsen.

9 October 2023

• 13:00-13:50 Marimo festival: day parade
• Onsen (1.5h)
• 19:00-19:50 Marimo festival: acceptance ceremony and night parade
• 20:00-20:45 Marimo festival: theatre performance

Marimo Festival: Day Parade

Another fine day with clear sky. From here on, the first thing I would do upon waking up was check the Israeli news. In the evening, I would call my family. The least I could do was talk to my mom every day now.

The French girl and I ate pastries from the French bakery for breakfast by the pleasure boat dock, on the shore of the calm and serene Lake Akan. Camembert cheese bread – real cheese! – caramel and coffee pastry, chocolate croissant, and an anpan donut. We discussed Japanese manners and immigration in France. The Icelandic family was there as well.

At 13:00, we witnessed the Marimo parade. Dancers progressed from the Eco Nature Museum to Ainu Kotan (“village” in Ainu language) along the main street. The Icelandic family was in attendance, the Australian couple, the French grandma… this village was so small, that one bumped into the other again and again.

I felt a bit bad for wearing a samue to an Ainu festival, but the dancers, who seemed more Japanese than Ainu, wore straw hats and Ainu-print kimonos.

The simple Marimo dance was so slow, that crossing the ten-minute street took fifty minutes. This gave me enough time to notice the multiple hand baths through it, my first time coming across one. Just as well, because my fingers were freezing.

While following the parade, I met a 23 years old queer American guy researching Ainu languages near Chitose for two years now, who’d come here to Lake Akan for the first time. I invited him to lunch, but he’d lost his wallet, and dashed to look for it in his car.

The French girl and lady wanted to have lunch. The lady struck me as quite heavy and clueless; I did not wish to have another meal with her. Plus, the Ainu restaurant from February in the Kotan was closed today, and Ainu food was generally too expensive for me (they might be capitalizing on the fact this was the only place for it).

I texted the American guy, hoping to hang out with him instead until tonight’s parade. He ignored my message.

Tsuruga Onsen

So at 15:00, I had a quick bite from Lawson and entered the best onsen in town, recommended to me by the Ojiisan.

The hotel was as fancy as it could get, with a harp player at the lobby, multiple shops, and two open air baths, on the first and eighth floors, rotating the genders on a daily basis.

Today the men’s was the superior one, on the first floor.

Onsens usually cost around 500 yen. Expensive ones, 1,000. Yesterday’s was among my highest ever, with 1,300 yen. My most expensive was 2,000 in Noboribetsu. Today it was 2,500.

The onsen was a huge complex with a flowery scent wafting all around. A reclining bath, a sitting waterfall bath, a reclining waterfall bath, an air bubble bath, a high temperature bath, a cold water bath, a cave bath, a whirlpool bath, and an open air bath.

The latter offered a panoramic view of the lake. Birds flying, pleasure boats cruising, a pinking sky during sunset.

I did not find it worth the exorbitant price. The water wasn’t special. Only the view of the lake.

Marimo Festival: Night Parade

In the afternoon, I rested at my ryokan, reading the news and calling my family. I headed a little after 18:00 to meet the French girl and lady, who were having dinner at Ainu Kotan. On my way there, festival participants wearing traditional Ainu clothes were walking in the opposite direction. Tonight’s festivities would start by the lake. I texted the French girl, and followed the participants.

Everyone gathered by the pleasure boat dock. It was already dark. Ainu people in elaborate, richly printed outfits. I spotted the American guy. And lots of stars. The sky was full of them.

At 19:00, Ainu elders started to sing and chant in their language. A boat emerged from the darkness of the lake, torches lighting its way. Ainu people carrying a basket full of Marimo were rowing to the dock.

There was an acceptance ceremony. Everyone was filming it from up close. It felt paparazzi-like; very invasive. I grew sorry for the Ainu people, who seemed reduced to snapshots. But I had to document this event as well. This was a cultural event the likes of which could only be witnessed at this specific place and time.

The Ainu people started parading with the Marimo toward the Kotan. Torches lighting their way at night. I followed them alongside the other tourists. The American guy was standing right next to me almost the entire time. He never once looked at me.

And to think we’d had a nice chat before he’d dashed to his car.

Almost every interaction I’d had with an American on this trip had left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t know why.

Another familiar face I spotted in the crowd: the loud Israeli guide from Asahidake. He was chasing the parade alongside the large group of Israeli elders on a tour.

I continued ahead away from them.

Near the Kotan, I spotted the French girl. I’d been looking all over for her the entire night.

“What the fuck?!” I exclaimed.

“I am SO annoyed,” she muttered. The French lady, uninterested in the parade, had prolonged their dinner well into the festivities, despite the girl’s protests. She’d missed everything.

In the midst of this, a middle-aged Japanese couple handed me their torches.

“Here’s your compensation,” I told the French girl.

We paraded with our torches. I almost felt like an actual participant in the festival. Missing was only one of those amazing Ainu jackets.

The parade ended at the Kotan, where everyone put their torches away. Next was a performance inside the theatre.

Marimo Festival: Theater Performance

I stood in line at the entrance with the French girl and met a Japanese girl working at the tourist hall. The Israeli group was talking loudly right next to us.

At 20:00, the performance began.

Ainu women whipping their hair back and forth like the Ainu Willow Smith; Ainu guys wielding bows and swords; all of them dancing in a circle. More Ainu singing, chanting, and a-capella.

Every article of clothing the Ainu people wore wowed me. Their prints. The colours. The headbands. The fingerless gloves. The matching print boots. The tunics. The belts. The robes. It felt like a fashion show and a festival at once. I wanted every single coat.

No one on Earth seemed as cool to me in that moment as those people. Living in the tiniest of villages deep in Hokkaido, in the middle of nowhere, by a beautiful lake, with the world’s only balls of algae, in minus 20 degrees in winter, and an effortlessly cool aesthetic. I appreciated their belief that everything in nature had a spirit; their reverence toward Marimo; and their sense of style.

As I watched their performance, I mourned the way Japan had essentially wiped their population and culture. A full-blown genocide. The French girl had assumed Hokkaido was full of Ainu people, with villages like Ainu Kotan all over this island. I had to explain to her: this was the only place to see their culture outside a museum. A culture being celebrated and brought to life.

The war in the Middle East wasn’t much different. Both sides of the conflict refused to live in peace on the same land, and sought to annihilate each other. Innocent people, whether Jews or Palestinians, died, all because of a small group of religious zealots on both sides. I was never one to blindly follow their home country, but Hamas had just committed the deadliest massacre in Middle Eastern history. Israel had every right to retaliate.

After the performance, the French girl struck up a conversation with the American guy. He talked to us both, again chatting enthusiastically, with frequent smiles.

He left, and we browsed the souvenir shops. We both wanted to buy an Ainu print t-shirt. But it cost twice as much as regular t-shirts in Japan. Less than t-shirts in France and Israel, but still.

Regardless, I didn’t want a t-shirt. I wanted a traditional Ainu print on a traditional Ainu silhouette. Like my jinbei, and yukata, and samue. A t-shirt felt to westernized, catered to a foreign audience. I would’ve bought a coat or a tunic if I could afford to.

I walked her to her ryokan and went to bed at midnight. I’d skipped dinner altogether, having eaten nothing since that konbini onigiri at 15:00. The onsen had wiped out my budget, and if I couldn’t return to Israel at the end of October – if I’d stay in the far East not because I wanted to continue traveling here, but because it would be dangerous for me not to – I’d need to downsize even more. Cowboy had also suggested I applied for a refugee visa.

Dozens of Israelis and tourists had been taken hostage into Gaza. Photos of houses and military base floors covered in blood circulating online. Hundreds of casualties, injuries, missile alarms. All while I was having fun in Japan. Who knew how long this war would last.

Today’s highlights: the bakery lakeside breakfast; the Marimo dance in the day parade; the rotenburo; the Marimo acceptance ceremony; parading with a torch; the Ainu performance.

10 October 2023

An Anxious Day Off

Rain cancelled the last day of the festival. I ate a melonpan, a cheese and walnut patty, and a caramel-coffee pastry at the French bakery and hurried to the Kotan, to ensure nothing was going on.

Nothing was going on.

Relief. The best day was yesterday, the main event, I got to see it, the weather was perfect. This morning would’ve been a reversal of last night’s events. It wasn’t as important, and I had too many errands to run. Apply for a refugee visa; book a ferry to Tohoku; buy souvenirs. Today would therefore be a day off of travel.

I wasn’t in the mood to have fun, anyway. The war made it feel wrong somehow.

Festival goers I recognized from yesterday showed up to the Kotan as well. The Icelandic family, for starters. I met more tourists who said they’d seen me yesterday at the festival. I couldn’t walk for a minute in this town without running into a familiar face or chatting with someone.

The French girl and I finished our souvenir shopping. I showed her the marimo tofu shop, where I bought a couple as a souvenir, and the staff threw in an extra two for free. She had to take a bus to Kushiro, and so we said goodbye.

Then I tried to book my ferry. The company had told me yesterday on the phone that it would be cheaper online, yet the website didn’t work.

I texted the Morioka woman that I still hadn’t booked my ferry back to Tohoku to return to Morioka, as I’d promised in early September, and that a war had begun in Israel. She contacted the Sendai lawyer, who’d taken me on a private tour of a sake factory back in August, and now advised me to apply for a refugee visa as well.

So I called the Israeli embassy. They didn’t know anything about refugee visas. They only tried to organize emergency rescue flights to Israeli tourists stranded in Japan.

I never thought I’d find myself in this position. Me, a war refugee? I’d never fought in a war. I wasn’t worthy of a visa. I was traveling and attending festivals, while people in Israel were being slaughtered.

On the other hand, the only thing waiting for me in Israel was missile alarms. Either I ran to shelters there, or attempted staying in the safest country on the planet.

I consulted the Ukrainian girls. There were a lot of questions to be asked about this legal situation.  

In-between all this, I made phone calls to each family member, even those I hadn’t spoken to in six months or more, because we weren’t on good terms. They’d informed me that the US and UK had sent weapons to Israel. An unprecedented form of aid. This war was truly unlike any other. And it would last longer than the usual 1-2 weeks.

By the evening, my mind was bursting. So much blood and uncertainty. What would happen in Israel? And would I find myself on a plane back there in three weeks?

I hadn’t wanted to go back anyway, during the entirety of this trip, but now, I had an actual cause for concern.

I resolved to head straight to the immigration office in Sapporo tomorrow after my bus from Lake Akan.

Lunch and dinner were both marimo tofu, nattou, and instant rice. I remained hungry all through the day, but didn’t feel like eating more, nor wasting money I couldn’t afford to waste.

At night, exhausted from endless, tense phone calls and legal information, I soaked by myself in the ryokan’s onsen. (Basically, an old, tiny, dirty pool, more ofuro-like than an actual onsen.) The 60-something degree water soothed me like a bear hug. I didn’t last even five minutes inside the bare, unventilated bathroom, but it sufficed. Onsens were truly therapeutic.

I went to bed at 22:00, wondering what further changes tomorrow might bring.

Today’s highlights: the bakery breakfast; the onsen at night.

11 October 2023

• 10:05-15:00 New Akan Hotel to Sapporo station bus

Sapporo Immigration Office

This morning, I checked out of my ryokan and headed to the wonderful French bakery for one last breakfast.

It was closed.

Today was its day off. So I settled on a konbini breakfast.

The direct bus to Sapporo was an 8-seat van. Through sunny fields in Hokkaido’s countryside. The ride included a forty-minute break at a cafeteria near Obihiro, decorated with Halloween pumpkins, and full of Halloween candy. I ate a seasonal pumpkin and azuki ice cream with mochi. The mochi was subpar, but the ice cream and beans underneath were lovely.

The van was so small and I got a bit nauseous with my belly full of ice cream and beans, that I couldn’t focus on anything, let alone use these five hours to write. I hadn’t written since checking out of my birthday ryokan, and now my eyes were stinging from inadequate sleep. I waited for time to pass.

As I hurried from Sapporo station to the immigration office, due to close in an hour, I beheld cool Japanese youth for the first time in two and a half weeks. I’d forgotten they existed.

My social life would die if I lived in the countryside.

“Hi, I’m an Israeli tourist in Japan,” I told the immigration office, “my visa is until November 1, but there’s a war right now and planes aren’t flying –”

The clerk handed me a visa extension form at once.

“We’re aware of the situation,” she said. “You don’t need to provide a photo and evidence.”

That wasn’t too hard.

While waiting for my turn, the news showed a pro-Israeli demonstration in Shibuya.

I asked the office about the refugee visa, and mentioned my desire to find work in Japan. They said such a visa didn’t grant one the right to work (out of fear that refugees would abuse the system just to move here), and suggested extending my tourist visa by another 90 days, until January 29. The only requirement was a return plane ticket.

While waiting for my forms, a text from the lawyer came. He recommended not applying for a refugee visa.

Just as my Ukrainian friend had told me yesterday, such a visa might be a black mark, triggering severe background checks and suspicion, thereby making it harder to find employment.

I left the office with my new plan – to apply for an extension tomorrow – and took the bus back to Sapporo station. While waiting for an hour to eat at the famous and crowded Hanamaru conveyor belt sushi, considered by some to be superior to Toriton, I chatted with the tourist information center’s ojiisan.

We talked about tourist spots in Hokkaido. He recommended restaurants I hadn’t heard of. After half an hour, during which he’d asked about my home country, I inquired after job openings at the information center. He suggested visiting the International Plaza’s foreigners help desk.

With a plan formed for tomorrow and my turn in Hanamaru finally arriving, I indulged in top-notch sushi. Squid and natto gunkanmaki, minced salmon and quail egg yolk gunkanmaki (a revelation), pickled plum paste and perilla roll, pickled cucumber roll, minced tuna gunkanmaki, tamago (wonderfully not to sugary), and one slightly more expensive piece of sushi – boiled conger eel and cucumber.

It was definitely one of the best sushi meals I’d eaten in Japan, yet it came nowhere as close to beating Toriton.

Reuniting with Cowboy

I took the metro and returned to Cowboy’s apartment. We had last seen each other on the morning of September 25.

As he opened the door for me, I felt that no time at all had passed. In less than a minute, we were teasing each other again.

I’d brought him a couple of Marimo tofu, an owl bookmark, and a heart-shaped owl bracelet from Lake Akan. He’d brought me a pink dolphin keychain and peach brandy with a squishy butt on the bottle from China.

The perfect present.

His loot included rabbit heads, duck tongue, sweet milk, peach and grape Oreo, and sugar-coated plums. The meat made me realize a future visit to China would culturally and culinary shock me more than Japan or Korea. The snacks, I liked.

After an hour, he left to work. Four hours of me trying to plan my next steps ensued. If I applied tomorrow to an extension, where would I fly next after the additional three months? I couldn’t book another flight to Israel. There was no telling when the war would end, nor that my application would be approved. (Even though the odds were in my favour.)

The cheapest flights were to Korea or Taiwan. I booked a more expensive, refundable ticket to Taiwan on January 25, just for the sake of the application.

Then I drafted a letter to the director of the immigration bureau and wondered how to spend another three months in this country. Money was the immediate problem, as my budget would only last me for another month. Finding a job had become more important than ever.

Today’s highlights: pumpkin and azuki ice cream; the sushi dinner; reuniting with Cowboy.

12 October 2023

Three More Months in Heaven

Morning with Cowboy, back from his graveyard shift at his hotel. He went to bed at some point, while I wrote a letter to the director in Japanese and printed a copy of my flight reservation and passport at Lawson.

I returned to the immigration office with my application, paid for the process, and a few minutes later, received my passport with a visa until January 30.

Approved on the spot.

I walked through sunny and pleasantly warm Sapporo feeling elated. Three more months in heaven!

I possessed no funds for this whatsoever. But what a grand opportunity. All thanks to war.

The deadliest massacre in Israeli history had created a rare window of opportunity for me, to continue traveling and looking for a job. In my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have asked for this scenario.

I headed straight away to the International Plaza. The ladies at the Sapporo foreign residents’ help desk said it was impossible to convert a tourist visa to a working visa in Japan.

One ought to find a job while overseas, interview online, obtain a working visa, and only then enter the country.

What a way to pop my bubble.

They suggested getting a refugee visa. I told them that it barred working as well, much to their surprise. They mentioned that Sapporo had zero refugees.

That was it for today. The immigration office and international plaza were alone on the list. How I managed to tick them off using only Japanese, I couldn’t understand. I struggled to speak about visa matters, yet got the gist of the issue at hand.

The time was 16:30; Cowboy wouldn’t wake until 19:00. Too late for the last few attractions in Sapporo on my list.

I took the metro to the obscure sushi restaurant recommended to me by the tourist information Ojiisan yesterday, which opened at 17:00. It was in a residential area outside the city center, devoid of diners, with tatami tables.

The Ojiisan had mentioned that the lunch sets were half the price… a fact that had slipped my mind. I ordered the cheapest dinner set, still twice my budget. The more time passed, the less I could afford it.

A western salad, chawanmushi, two tamago, eight huge onigiri – salmon, tuna, squid, shrimp, scallop, etc. – and a cod roe sushi.

The onigiri were too large to conveniently chew in one bite, per the etiquette, yet the fish were good. By the end, however, I could barely stuff the thick and gigantic sashimi into my mouth.

No sushi restaurant could ever beat Toriton.

From now on, I’d have even less time to write. Planning the next four months would take time and effort. Perhaps I’d be able to volunteer somewhere, like I had in Korea.

In the past few days, several people had reached out to me. The Indian guy from Yokohama, the cabbage grandma… the Morioka woman and Sendai lawyer helped me immensely after reaching out to the former. Yet none of my Japanese and Korean friends had made a sound. Had they really not heard the news?

Meanwhile, the two Ukrainian girls I’d met in Japan maintained regular contact with me, offering their support and advice.

Why could a girl I’d spoken to for ten minutes in late March be there for me, but not my other friends? Just because she’d experienced war and immigrated to Japan as a refugee?

In the evening, I returned to Cowboy’s apartment. We had an hour and a half together before he went to work. I wanted to go to bed early again, but then he texted that he wasn’t feeling well. So at midnight, I visited him at his hotel.

I went to sleep grateful that I got more time in Japan. It was just another postponement of the inevitable – a return to Israel, to being jobless, penniless, with neither friends, nor future prospects. To living with my family, losing my independence, and my hope. But what was life, if not a delay of demise?

For some people, death came suddenly, in the form a terrorist. For me, war extended my trip in paradise. I doubted I could ever rid myself of the guilt.

Today’s highlights: morning with Cowboy; getting my visa extended.