A good friend is one who stabs you in the front.

Oscar Wilde

A complete 180 from my last post.

17 October 2023

• Final exploration of Sapporo: Nijo Market, Odori bus terminal, former government building, Hokkaido university’s campus…

Sapporo

Sapporo was sunny yet blustery today. So cold.

I started my day late with a return to Nijo Market, with the intention of recreating the delicious meal I’d eaten here in February. At 14:15, I arrived too late.

No biggie. A return to Toriton was more important.

Cowboy pointed out that the bus terminal was close to the market, so I walked there to ask about my reservation (I had a problem with the bus to my ferry).

“What would I do without you?” I texted. The bus terminal sorted out my problem; it hadn’t occurred to me to make a stop there.

Next was a fifteen-minute walk to the former Hokkaido government building. It was under renovations. The façade was covered with a picture of the actual façade.

In 1869, as part of the Meiji restoration, the Ainu island called Ezochi was renamed Hokkaido. In 1888, this western structure was erected: neo-baroque red bricks, plus a large dome. The pictures made it seem lovelier than previous red brick buildings I’d seen, such as in Yokohama.

There was also a gorgeous pond with red, yellow, and green leaves. The water was steaming rapidly due to the wind. The city made various noises: beeping of pedestrian crossings, trucks backing up, the traffic of cars. I still found the pond peaceful.

As far as green fix spots in Sapporo went, I would come here and to Nakajima Park on a regular basis.

How I liked Sapporo… my first place in Japan, first time seeing snow in fifteen years, first time out of the west, on a long trip, on my own. It all began here. And now, my second round here, meeting Cowboy –

Sendai had become a mythical place for me for all the wrong reasons. Sapporo, for the right ones.

In two weeks, the government building grounds would be yellow all over. Such a forecast made me want to stay in Hokkaido even longer than my current five weeks. Noboribetsu would also peak in a fortnight.

What it did matter if I did extend my stay on Sapporo by another fortnight, though, if I was doomed to leave it at some point? If I couldn’t work here. If I couldn’t see Cowboy.

I continued to Hokkaido university. The campus was large and spacious, with both students and tourists being quiet. It was even more serene than the pond.

I reached the famous ginkgo avenue. The trees were green. In two weeks, they would turn 100% yellow.

The avenue ended with the exit from campus where my hotel from February 9-10 stood. Right in front of the ginkgo avenue. I recalled arriving here at night on my first day, after forty eight hours of no sleep inside three planes. Slipping on ice for the first time and trudging on snow. My first visit to a 7/11 by the hotel. And the adjacent shop, where I’d bought my winter gear.

The time was only 16:00, and I was done for today, apart from dinner. So I walked for twenty minutes to a branch of Toriton in the suburbs.

Curious, how this chain had branches all over Hokkaido, but only in faraway locations. Not a single one in the city center.

The Passenger

I thought about last night while walking.

“You’re just new to this,” Cowboy had whispered to me in the dark.

I would’ve liked to have navigated relationships at 18, rather than 28. Like a normal person. Not like one who’d picked books over people.

As bad as I felt for acting like a teenager at 28, and for making too many mistakes while dating, I didn’t mind the feeling of being new. In fact, I liked it. I enjoyed venturing into uncharted territories and exploring the unknown. Whether slices of nature or people. I was discovering new sides of life and, perhaps, of myself.

I regretted making mistakes I should’ve foreseen – but I’d grown thanks to them. My bad experiences with dating, I wouldn’t take back. I wanted life to remain new. It made me feel like an outsider, but at least I didn’t sink into familiarity. At least life wasn’t boring.

“You’re just a passenger in my life,” Cowboy had said.

Maybe I was indeed just a passenger. Moving from one place to another, never settling, never finding a place to settle. My dream was to travel the world. ‘Passenger’ was a nice term for nomadism. And with my scant budget, I was little more than a hobo.

Despite all this, Cowboy had let me into his car. He’d unlocked the door for me, and invited me into his life. The fragility of our acquaintance was well known to him. Yet he hadn’t spurned something good just because it might end.

For that, I was grateful.

Because it was exactly what I’d been looking for. What I’d needed, what I’d been yearning. Someone to let me in. He might’ve called me a mere passenger to my face, but he didn’t play games with me. And to think that I was worried our first meeting would be our last.

‘Passenger’ felt like the most unintentionally hurtful thing I’d been called. But it was true.

It was an eye-opener. If I had to describe myself in one word, at this stage in my life, I would choose it.

On the contrary – if I had to break my trip into parts:

• First three months in Japan: “Not What I Had in Mind” (from my experience in early April in Iya Valley)
• First three months in Korea: “New Heights, New Lows” (from last two weeks in Korea, in late July)
• Second three months in Japan: “The Passenger” (from my lack of stability in relationships, residence, finance, and profession)

What would the next three months be called? I had no idea what might happen to me in a week, a month, a year. Such was my life now.

For my second time in Toriton, I ate a scallop sashimi; a salmon sashimi; a scallop, squid, and crab sushi; a raw egg yolk and seafood battleship sushi; plus an eel and egg sushi.

In the evening, I journalled inside Sapporo library until 21:30, and then crossed the cold and quiet streets of Odori at night. The lit-up TV tower with colorful dots blinking. How I would miss this.

Sapporo was the perfect size for me. A compact downtown with endless foodie spots. Not too big, busy, and touristy. Close to nature and onsens. My kind of city.

Things got lively once I reached Susukino. At least one block in this city wasn’t dead every night of the week.

The only thing that bothered me was the nonexistent queer scene.

At 22:00, I met Cowboy outside his hotel. We waited for an hour outside a ramen shop known for its unique shrimp miso broth. Yet another reason why Sapporo had the best food.

Back in his apartment, I booked a bus for a day trip to Lake Toya tomorrow. Two hours and forty-five minutes each way for a mere four hours there. Cowboy pointed out that people usually spent the night there because of the distance, enjoyed the lake, the onsens, and visited the nearby Noboribetsu. I just cared about the volcanic trail.

“Besides, this way I can see you tomorrow when I come back.”

“I don’t want to see you,” he smiled.

I decided to always take his words as the opposite of his thoughts.

We went to bed without him bringing up last night.

“I thought a lot about what you said,” I whispered.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

I asked if he was okay with me writing about it. He said that no one would read it but him anyway.

“When you get your stuff out there, I just want a cut of the profits,” he added.

Even if this fantasy came true, I wouldn’t be able to repay him.

As he started singing Taylor songs under his breath, I whispered something in my usual lack of tact.

“You’re more than just a passenger in my life.”

He continued singing as if he hadn’t heard me. We went to sleep.

Today’s highlights: the government building’s pond; a return to Toriton; shrimp miso ramen.

18 October 2023

• 10:25-13:10 Susukino station (bus stop by exit 4) to Toyako Onsen bus, 13:15-13:18 bus to Nishiyama footpath
• Nishiyama volcanic trail (1h)
• Foot bath by the lake
• 17:10-19:25 Toyako bus terminal to Susukino station bus

Lake Toya

This morning, I took the metro to Susukino and the highway bus to Lake Toya.

The bus ride was as long as it was beautiful. Peak kouyou on a sunny day. The mountains around Jozankei were a colorful celebration of fall: equal parts green, red, orange, and yellow.

Toyako was just as magnificent. A gigantic blue lake with an kouyou-mountain-island in the middle. The town street was lined with red trees.

At the bus terminal’s tourist information center, I asked about the Nishiyama volcanic trail. The bus there was departing right this second. I hurried to board it with a map they gave me.

Three minutes up the mountain to an abandoned information facility about the volcanic eruption of 2000. The bus was full to the brim with German tourists… yet I was the only one who got off here.

I hid my bag inside a cabinet in the facility next to a bento with mouldy food. The only sign around pointed at a number 9. No distance to that location.

The map I was given listed points 1-7. No point 9.

Where was I.

I started walking towards point number 9. If my calculations were right, I could walk all the way back to the information center.

Midway through a forest, a middle-aged Japanese couple confirmed this, yet warned me of bear footprints. Hoping I wouldn’t bump into one, I ran back to the information facility, grabbed my bag, and at 14:00, set off again.

I walked alone inside a forest and played Carly Rae Jepsen loudly to ward off bears. Every rustle of leaves made me jump. A fault escarpment formed on the town road was now off limits.

The map I’d gotten was horrendous. The numbers on it didn’t correspond to the signage on the path, and the drawing was difficult to understand.

Helicopters were constantly flying overhead. At least I could signal them if I needed help.

At 15:15, I reached Yukun Crater. A beautiful, clear blue lake.

I met a French woman hiking up alone. She told me to turn right at the intersection further down the road for some ruins of the volcanic eruption. At least bears hadn’t eaten her.

A huge housing complex stood there. Mud had gushed into the balconies; fallen volcano rocks had pierced the roof. Seeing it from up close felt as creepy as Okunoshima’s abandoned power plant.

I loved it.

An equally-tarnished onsen stood nearby, with doors pierced as though by bullets.

I reached Toyako Visitor Center at the end of the trail at 15:00.

In the two hours I had until my return bus, I rested in front of the lake, and at a foot bath. Then, a long visit to Seico Mart ended with me leaving with a bag full of provisions I hadn’t tried before, since my time in Hokkaido was coming to a close. Seico milk, fried potato (as delicious as Cowboy had said), egg salad sandwish, cheese tart, pumpkin dorayaki…

I took the bus back to Sapporo and waited for Cowboy to return.

Throughout the day, he’d texted me to rest and sleep well before driving tomorrow. But I had to write. He came back near midnight.

Today’s highlights: the kouyou in Lake Toya; beholding volcanic ruins; discovering new delicacies curtesy of my favorite kobini.

19 October 2023

The Silence Before the Storm

Today I did nothing but write. I was possessed. Finally, I caught up with everything that had happened since Lake Akan.

I didn’t have anything else (rather, affordable) on my list for Sapporo, so I didn’t go out.

Cowboy returned from work at night. We sang Taylor and took advantage of our time together. I went to bed with my legs heavy; this always happened in bouts of extreme fatigue. Not the best state to be in before driving tomorrow on a road trip.

With his nose breathing on my neck, however, I soon forgot my cares.

Today’s highlights: writing and spending time with Cowboy.

20 October 2023

• Driving from Sapporo to Jozankei (~1.5h)
• Jozankei bridge and temple (30m)
• Hoheikyo onsen (2h)
• Hoheikyo Dam (45m)
• Driving back to Sapporo (~1h)
• Asahiyama memorial park (15m)
• 21:10-22:55 Odori Chuo bus terminal to Tomakomai ferry terminal bus, 00:00-7:30 Tomakomai to Hachinohe overnight ferry

My First Rental Car on the Left Side

How to go from embracing someone every night to sleeping alone?

I reflected on this as I woke, and held onto Cowboy.

“Are you going to miss me?” he asked.

“No,” I whispered, and hugged him even tighter.

At 9:00, we went to the car rental agency in Susukino. We received a new hybrid model, a bit smaller than the one I’d rented with Saki in Tokyo.

I started the engine by pressing a button and hitting the brakes. In Israel, you hit the gas.

Navigation was also different. Entering a place’s phone number made it show up on the map.

Driving for the first time since January in Israel was a bit daunting. After a minute or so, I felt fine.

Maybe it was good that enough time had passed since I’d driven on the right-hand side of the road. The only scary moments were when I kept leaning too close to the left side of the lane. The driver seat being on the right threw me off and made me think I’d been leaning too much to the right.

“I’m taking one last look at the world around me,” Cowboy said, holding on to his seat’s grab handle, “in case I leave it.”

We returned to Cowboy’s apartment to pick up my luggage. He caught me leaving a note by the entrance. A handwritten poem.

It was my second time writing a poem to someone. The first, from late July, I couldn’t deliver.

Finally, we hit the road. Naturally, what ensued was a road trip to the soundtrack of Taylor Swift.

I wasn’t tired for a second.

Jozankei

At 11:15, we parked by the famous bridge in Jozankei. An incredible kouyou spot, with a river and hotels. Misty and rainy and atmospheric.

I asked to stop five minutes down the road at a tiny temple with a cave, where I ducked to view 33 kannon statues in alcoves.

At 12:00, we reached Hoheikyo Onsen. It was famous for its Indian curry (NOT Japanese curry), and even grew lettuce in a greenhouse inside the dining hall. We sat by the garden with kouyou bushes and mountains and hot spring streams raising steam. My seafood curry, nan, and chai were as delectable as that view.

Then we spent two whole hours inside the rotenburo – one of Hokkaido’s largest open-air baths. On the slope of a kouyou mountain.

It was a steamy affair, with my glasses constantly fogging up. My longest ever at an onsen, and the most fun I’d had. With him, it was an experience unlike any other.

We talked about our wildly different high school experiences.

In his city in China, his gigantic school featured tons of uncloseted lesbians and gays. Feminine guys wearing twenty-centimetre, violet leopard print platform shoes and makeup. If the teacher scolded them, they would snap: “Fuck off.”

In my city in Israel, in my large school, there were only a handful of queers. Everyone else would point out how feminine I was for wearing skinny jeans and converse shoes and tight, neon green pants. Even my family. People rarely said ‘gay’, because it sounded like a taboo – a word too disgusting to utter.

“You know you’re really feminine, right?” a random guy had told me one time at recess, and then tried to psychoanalyse me. He’d thought my parents’ divorce was to blame, yet my brother was the epitome of machoism.

I’d learned to curb my femininity. Tel Aviv was considered one of the gay capitals of the world… Ironically enough, China sounded more tolerant.

While discussing this, I noticed a small, grey salamander floating in the water next to me. Soft and squishy. It was dead.

“I like how you hold me tight, even when you start to breathe heavily and snore,” Cowboy said later on. “It felt like I was being loved.”

We drove five minutes to Hoheikyo Dam, the first of its kind in Japan. No entry to private vehicles: we took the overpriced, six-minute shuttle bus through a single-lane tunnel that stopped at a clearing on the way, with a stunning view of a yellow valley and a waterfall.

My first time seeing kouyou on cliffs. It was rainy on foggy, too cold for Cowboy to wear sandals without socks. We shivered while marvelling at the water gushing out of the dam in breathtaking force. An occurrence reserved only for rainy days.

A Romantic Road Trip

We drove back to Sapporo at sunset through the darkening countryside. All Too Well, the ten-minute version: perfect for a cold, autumn night. Holding hands as I drove with the other, tears streamed down my face. I would remember this moment all too well.

Next he played ‘Tis the Damn Season, another sombre, autumnal composition.

“To leave the warmest bed I’ve ever known,” Swift sang. I voiced my agreement with her feeling.

At 17:25, with I’ll Never Love Again by Lady Gaga playing, we parked outside his building in Sapporo. I didn’t stop the engine. I let the song play as we sat in the dark street with the wipers working and our fingers intertwined. He rested his head on my shoulder.

We went up to his apartment to put his things. He changed into socks and shoes.

“I can see you everywhere,” he said. “All over my apartment.”

This only made me feel worse about leaving.

Asahiyama Memorial Park

At 18:00, we arrived at his favourite spot in Sapporo: Asahiyama memorial park, a little-known observation point built in 1970 to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of Sapporo. It was too blustery and cold for us to linger. We went to a gas station to fill up the tank.

“To leave the warmest bed I’ve ever known,” he sang out of nowhere. He would often break into a random Swift song.

I remained silent and drove while he was on his phone.

“You’re leaving me,” he said.

I couldn’t bear this feeling. I wanted time to stop.

“Hey,” I said and looked at him. “Did you expect any of this?”

He looked at me back.

“No.”

We returned the car a little before our deadline at 19:00. While walking around Susukino, he took me to a Cremia ice cream stand, with a rich vanilla and a Shiroi koibito cookie for a cone.

Why did I discover the best cone in existence in my last night in Hokkaido?

Then, a final adieu to the heavenly cheese tarts I always ate in Sapporo. The bakery’s tall ice cream suddenly paled in comparison to Cremia.

Farewell to Cowboy

We crossed the underground Pole Town via Odori station to Aurora Town and sat at a café. At 19:30, I was too full from cheese tarts and ice cream.

“Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts…” he sang.

Neither of us touched our pasta at first. The atmosphere had gotten tense. With my bus to the ferry terminal leaving at 21:00, I knew it was time for final statements. I’d written my thoughts on my phone in advance.

The conversation that ensued, I could not recreate in its entirety. My lips trembled as I tried to utter the sentences on my screen.

“I came to Hokkaido during a very bad time”, I said. “I couldn’t take another rejection. Another disappointment. I left Tokyo thinking: that’s it. I’m never opening up again. I won’t get attached.

Then we met, and it was like that,” I said, snapping my fingers. “I didn’t know guys like you existed.”

He listened to me as tears slowed down my speech.

“You taught me more than anyone,” I said. “You deserve someone better.”

“Someone who eats meat and isn’t a skeleton,” he laughed.

“And drinks tomato juice, and doesn’t listen to flops.”

We’d been joking that only gays in their flop era listened to flops.

“I know we’ll meet again,” I said, trembling. “But I also know that by then you’ll find that person.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” he muttered.

When I’d first arrived to Japan, I’d travelled for eleven days in Hokkaido. That magical period of time had convinced me Sapporo would someday be my home.

Since then, I’d partied in Tokyo, met people, dated, and gone out. After feeling lonely my whole life, I had resolved to pick Tokyo instead. Life in a metropolis hadn’t spoken to me – yet I’d already made friends in Tokyo. I could meet new people every day. I could go out on dates. In September, I’d gone out on five dates in four days.

I didn’t want to be lonely anymore. I would pick extreme urbanism to avoid that. Two and a half weeks in Sapporo since mid-September had taught me that there simply weren’t as many people to meet here.

“Everyone left me during COVID,” Cowboy said. “I was lonely.”

“And you never thought about moving to Tokyo?”

No. Instead, he’d gotten used to loneliness.

He kept urging me to eat some of the pasta. I didn’t want even a single bite.

I saw him cry for the first time.

We stared at each other for a long time. Sometimes, he avoided my gaze.

“I’m just so used to this,” he said after a while. “People always leave me and say I’m good at goodbyes. I’m so used to saying goodbye that at this point, it’s like, what’s another one?”

He stopped crying. Anger was twisting his face.

“I just hate it when people say, ‘Oh, you deserve someone better.’”

“They always give you my speech,” I said, surprised.

He nodded.

“I just think you’re new to this,” he said. “You’re still experiencing, still learning.”

“You deserve someone who doesn’t need to be taught.”

We talked about the future. He’d been trying to convince me to enrol in a language school for weeks, instead of traveling. Improving my Japanese to fluency and taking the JLPT made more sense, if I sought to stay in Japan and find employment here.

He wanted me to stay in Sapporo.

“I gave so many signs,” he said, referencing Swift’s Exile, a ballad about a failed relationship. “The language school I went to in Sapporo, I asked you if you wanted me to contact them –”

“And I said yes, but you never did,” I said, having assumed that he wasn’t serious.

“I let you into my home,” he said. “You asked me at the zoo when I wanted you to leave, and I didn’t answer, because I didn’t.”

When he’d attended his cousin’s wedding in China, while I’d been working at the cabbage farm, he’d sent me some photos.

“Chinese weddings look so extravagant,” I’d texted.

“You should start saving up if you want to marry me,” he’d replied.

Yet now, money would keep us apart.

As much as I hated to admit it, money wasn’t the only hurdle standing in the way. I confided in him secrets about me that only a couple of people knew. Secrets I wanted to bury forever.

If we grew even closer, he needed to become aware of them.

“That’s just life,” he said in the end, unfazed. As if I’d been uttering trifles.

It didn’t feel like he was belittling my problems. On the contrary, I felt relieved that they hadn’t scared him away.

“You can’t love others if you don’t love yourself,” he said, paraphrasing the famous quote by RuPaul. “I love myself.”

“I don’t.”

It was a confession easy for me to make.  

“Why do you think I’ve only begun dating on this trip?” I asked. “When I arrived to Japan, I felt free. I’d become someone else. If I returned to Israel now, people wouldn’t recognize me. I don’t love myself – but I like myself better now. I feel more like myself here.

“You deserve someone who isn’t fucked up,” I added.

“You think that’s fucked up? In China we just say that’s life.”

He confided in me skeletons in his own closet. They sounded worse than mine.

Actually, they sounded like fiction. A past I couldn’t have come up with.

My reply was the epitome of my lack of tact. There were so many things I wished to say in response to his trauma. Yet I pointed out that it was time to head to the bus terminal.

We left without me eating a bite.

“You’re my longest,” I said out in the street.

“You’re my shortest.”

“See? You see how this is fucked up?” I exclaimed.

How could we move forward, when we’d experienced a completely different romantic and sexual life?  

“My heart is bulletproof,” he said. From all the goodbyes and disappointment.

I saw some similarities between us. My friends back home had never seen me cry. In fact, they’d often joke that I had no emotions. Now, I’d been saying more and more goodbyes on this trip, and they only got harder. My tears had become abundant.

“I’m going to say something very rude,” I said while waiting at the bus terminal. “I told you a few weeks ago that I’m finally at a point in my life where I’m ready to start dating. And I want to do this with you. But you said it yourself. I’m still learning. I think I have a lot of catching up to do… I need more experience.”

He seemed to understand what I was going for. Whether it made sense to him or disappointed him, I wasn’t sure. But I knew I wasn’t the only person he’d been talking to.

The bus arrived.

“Thank you for driving today,” he said. “I really enjoyed it.”

“So did I.”

I hugged him so hard, that the driver stood waiting just for me in order to depart.

“I’ll be back someday,” I said.

“I know you will,” he smiled.

I got on the bus. He watched as the vehicle started to move. I did the Korean heart sign, which he detested. He grinned at me and left.

“You know I hate that,” he texted, with an angry emoji.

Overnight Ferry

I wrote all this on the highway bus to Tomakomai ferry terminal, crying in a moving vehicle for the umpteenth time.

My second overnight ferry. First time was in February, from Sendai to Nagoya. After being forced to say goodbye to the first person I’d liked.

Back then, seeing the ocean at night had freaked me out.

The ferry was like a spaceship crossing an endless, dark mass. The only thing visible was the vessel itself. We were surrounded by, seemingly, an endless nothingness.

It was cold, yet surprisingly not very windy. Piano music was playing from the inside. I gotta say, that helped. It was amazing how we could cross such an inhospitable body of water, without any landmarks to guide or assuage us, and navigate in the night. But there was something disturbing about that view, too. Once again, I felt how much I was a weak speck in a vast, uncaring world.

“Kanazawa Sad” (21 February 2023)

Now, the first thing I did was head out to the promenade. Since we were still docked, the view wasn’t as frightening.

I went inside the ferry and thought about the way my five weeks in Hokkaido had ended. Someone was waiting for me to move to his city to be with him: a situation I hadn’t thought I’d find myself in. Could I make this work?

Tokyo would offer more opportunities for me. Work, apartments, social life. I knew it would be easier to find a Japanese language school there. If I chose Sapporo, it would be for Cowboy. If I chose Tokyo, I wouldn’t be able to see him.

Suddenly, I had a choice to make. Date someone I’d known for a month in my favourite region in Japan, or pursue more opportunities for my social life, my dating life, and my career.

I wanted to do both.

Body heavy with sudden fatigue and the foreign weight of such a decision, I realized today might have turned me into a driver in more than one way. Here was an invitation to become more than a passenger in someone’s life.

Somehow, I felt more comfortable in the passenger seat.

I didn’t want to make this choice. I didn’t know what to think and what to do. It was easier to be the one getting hurt. No guilt came with that. Only anger.

The day after I’d met Cowboy, I’d called my Swiftie friend from Korea. September 16, the night before Pride, alone in my hostel near midnight.

“I don’t want to get hurt again,” I’d said on the phone. “But I can’t stop thinking about him.”

“I feel like you’re the one who’s going to hurt him,” my friend had replied, to my utter bewilderment. How, when Cowboy hadn’t echoed my suggestion at another meeting?

Now, I texted the same friend.

“You were right,” I wrote. “In the end, I was the one who hurt him.”

I already wanted to return to Sapporo.

My dormitory featured hard, thin futons, separated by dividers around each passenger’s face. Neither pillow nor blanket.

With announcements being spoken to no end on speaker every single minute while I was trying to sleep, I felt a déjà vu to Rebun island. I disliked how Japan needed to announce every little instruction on speaker.

Too distraught to doze off, I took melatonin, and went to sleep at midnight.

Today’s highlights: driving for the first time on the left side; an autumnal, Taylor-Swift road trip; Jozankei’s kouyou; a delicious nan, a proper chai, and Indian curry in Japan; Hoheikyo Onsen; Hoheikyo Dam; the Lady Gaga moment; Cremia ice cream; a food-less dinner with raw and honest communication; and doing all this with Cowboy.