The closest thing I’d had to a human contact since the airdrop, the distant lights triggered a flood of emotion that caught me off guard. I imagined people watching baseball on television, eating fried chicken in brightly lit kitchens, drinking beer; making love. When I lay down to sleep, I was overcome by a wrenching loneliness. I’d never felt so alone, ever.

Jon Krakauer, “Into the Wild”

In the past few months, I’ve written several bleak posts about interpersonal relationships. The Friend Zone in June, New Lows in July, The Last Straw in August, The Final Spark in September: every month brought with it an unexpected struggle.

I didn’t think October would bring another, and indeed, this time it’s different. I stopped facing rejection… only to face something else.

13 October 2023

• 19:30-22:30 Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie

Growing Close to Cowboy

I spent the whole day with Cowboy, who had taken the day off, in his apartment, while trying to plan my extended time in Japan. Where to work? Where to volunteer?

The more I got to know him, the more I learned and noticed.

First, about Swift, her artistry, or rather, her mastery when it came to songwriting, planting easter eggs, and incorporating deeper meanings. Whenever I said something tactless or did something inconsiderate, he would get angry or frustrated with me. Then I would bring Taylor up, and he would gush over her. It worked like a charm. She made everything right in his world, and gave him life.

Second, about him. He had a wicked sense of humour. The kind only a fellow queer obsessed with drag and shade culture could have. With him, I could be snide and snarky to a playful extent. Some people took everything seriously, but he knew how to play. In the past, there were those who had toyed with me, rather than with jokes.

Third, he was indirect in the way he communicated, but he wasn’t misleading, either. He never lied to me (when he wasn’t blatantly cynical) or planted false hope. When I’d tell him I liked him, he would smile and say, “I don’t like you.” I knew better than to believe him. One time, he’d covered my face with a blanket, and said I looked prettier.

Fourth, he’d been nurturing me since day one. He didn’t just check if I was eating properly, got enough sleep, or made it to my destination. When I needed to take a highway bus, he would look for the bus stop, without me asking him to. When I had a problem, he would text me with suggestions, where to go, who to talk to. He didn’t compliment me – rather, criticized my clothes, my physique, my predicament – but his actions sang a different tune.

He had a street style worthy of being featured on the explore page on Instagram. He appreciated good music, and moreover, music that doubled as art. We were the same age, from completely different backgrounds – our bodies even reacted differently to the same temperature, as I wore socks to bed, and shivered uncontrollably already in October – yet we enjoyed the same things, and I could talk to him for hours.

Movie Night

In the afternoon, we grabbed a bite at Sapporo Factory, a cool mall with old-school buildings covered in reddening ivy. Then, at 19:30, we met his Swiftie friend and her friend at the movie theatre. She’d made a “cardigan” friendship bracelet for me (Swifties had been exchanging such bracelets with each other ever since You’re on Your Own, Kid, my favourite Swift song, had come out).

It was my first cinema in Japan, first cinema in nearly two years, and first IMAX since 2012. Of course Japan sold a butter-soy sauce popcorn flavour! And the ability to order a half-and-half basket of popcorn. I got this and caramel and an apple juice, all of which came on a tray. This way, no one dropped popcorn on the floor.

Popcorn trays weren’t a thing abroad.

The theatre was only a quarter full. As the movie began, Cowboy and his friend were hyperventilating like me at a Harry Potter screening. He was sweating with excitement.

They sang for three hours straight, every single song featured in the movie. Screaming, holding hands during tense moments, breaking into tears and laughter. It was more entertaining than the movie at times, and almost infectious.

My eyelids dropped in exhaustion at some point. Yet the movie was too loud for me to doze off.

Empathising with many of the songs about heartbreak, and beholding how successful Swift had become – how she’d fulfilled her wildest dreams and was living her best life, as an artist who didn’t have to compromise anymore over her artistry – who wrote what she liked, and experimented, only to get more and more successful, more famous, more beloved, more wealthy –

All of this made me grow tired and sad.

I thought about my failures and unfulfilled dreams. How nothing in my life had gone the way I’d intended it to, while Swift was now in full control of her narrative.

“Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life,” she sang in Tolerate It.

Cowboy had been joking that queers who listened to Carly Rae Jepsen were in their flop era. I’d answered in all earnestness that I was. Traveling without the money for it, couch-surfing at strangers’ apartments, dedicating all my free time to writing posts that, as he’d rightfully pointed out, no one was reading… who knew what would happen to me in the future, legally speaking…

Entertainment made one escape reality and forget about their problems. Art shed new light on reality and reminded one of their problems. Such was the difference, in my opinion, between good and bad crafts.

Tonight, Swift gave me both.

The more I got to know Cowboy, the bigger Swiftie I became. Her movie ended after three hectic hours of nonstop singing, after which we went to bed late.

Today’s highlights: the movie; caramel popcorn.

14 October 2023

• Metro to Makomanai station, then to Maruyama station
• Maruyama Zoo (3h)

Maruyama Zoo

We woke early with the intention of using Cowboy’s second day off to visit a rotenburo south of Sapporo with peak kouyou. The onsen ran a free shuttle bus from Makomanai station, where I saw beautiful koyo, and we ate a pumpkin cake from an obaachan stand.

We waited for the shuttle at 10:00. It didn’t come. Only then did we realize today it didn’t operate. The onsen enjoyed enough customers on weekends coming on their own with a car.

Since we’d purchased the weekend-only one-day subway pass, we took advantage of it and went to Maruyama Zoo on a whim instead.

I was disappointed that we hadn’t gotten to visit the onsen – Cowboy had gone there often, and a Japanese man I’d met at a bar in Busan back in June had recommended it to me as well – that a zoo hadn’t struck me as a proper compensation. I’d always minded their treatment of animals.

Cowboy must have noticed my lack of excitement, because the vibe between us grew distant and awkward. He was set on visiting the zoo. I just wanted to spend time with him. But for a while, we barely talked.

It was a busy day at the zoo, sunny and warm and pretty. We saw geese, raccoons, eagles, sheep, bunnies, hares with super long legs, squirrels, tigers, kangaroo. A twenty-minute line led us to a family of elephants, the baby born earlier this year. The mother was tattooed with stars and numbers on her rear side.

Penguins, polar bears, seals, and my first sighting of the uber cute red panda. Flamingo, turtles, crocodiles, anaconda, gecko, poison dart frogs… he positively melted inside the reptilian pavilion. He’d worked at a reptile shop in Sapporo as a student of Japanese, and wanted to work with them again in the future. Four snakes and two lizards resided in his home.

We were both dead tired, though, after a night of little sleep, and rested on a bench for an hour in-between.

In the afternoon, he went to an early dinner and a second screening of the Taylor Swift: Eras Tour movie (there would be a third time for him tomorrow – just like that time I’d watched Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts day after day at the movie theatre).

I returned to his apartment. My family was crying on the phone, my sister, in Cyprus, terrified of the war, had broken her little toe, and got infected with COVID. I needed to contact ski resorts in Niseko for jobs, the ferry company for a bus from Sapporo, my airline company for a refund, the people from Morioka for my upcoming return there, the Jewish / Israeli community in Japan for potential help, find volunteering spots around Japan, and meanwhile the foreigner help desk had sent me a huge email in Japanese with more places to contact.

In the end, I managed to cover about half of those.

Today’s highlights: pumpkin cake; red pandas.

15 October 2023

• 16:10-18:20 Kinoshita Circus

Kinoshita Circus

Cowboy left early this morning for work, while I slept until 10:00. Apparently, I’d been snoring and making it hard for him to get his already inadequate sleep.

Not the best way to thank someone who’d invited me to their home, and their life.

The least I could do was accept the free ticket to a circus he’d gifted me through his workplace and attend it today, on the circus’ last day. So I spent five hours sending emails, job applications, messages to people regarding work and accommodation, and trying to plan my day trips from Sapporo, before leaving Hokkaido this week.

At 15:00, I took the metro to Fukuzumi station and walked for fifteen minutes to the circus. The line to the free seating area took 35 minutes, but I got inside the tent just as the show began.  

Acrobatics, stunts, magic tricks. A lion in a tiny cage that neither moved nor made a sound. Was he under sedation?

Magicians, pyrotechnics, ponies trained to pose and act like dogs. A European duo jumped on a gigantic, rotating bar in the air, walked on their hands, somersaulted, and jumped on a rope.

During the break, two obaachans sitting next to me asked me to watch their bags while they bought KFC. They returned and offered me a fried chicken leg. I declined, but they shoved it to my face, and so I tasted this dish for the first time.

Then the show continued with four tamed tigers and motorcyclists racing upside down inside a sphere, without falling or colliding into each other. Elephants trained to stand on their rear feet. In the end, trapeze artists performed a proper, adrenaline-induced finale.

As I watched the show, examples of animals out of their natural habitat, behaving in an unnatural manner, in the past two days made me wonder about humans. Were we living in our natural habitat? In our natural state? War and work?

Business Dinner

After the circus, I took the metro to Susukino station for dinner with the Lake Akan Ojiisan, who had offered me a job. His son ran an izakaya right on Susukino crossing, at the busiest and most popular area in Sapporo. The izakaya was always too crowded for showing up without a reservation. Completely out of my budget – yet I couldn’t, or rather wouldn’t, decline the invitation.

Between 19:00-21:30, I diner with him and his middle-aged friend, who was in the ryokan when I’d first talked to him. I’d assumed she was a member of the family running the ryokan, but she was originally from Kitami, had worked at the Akan ski resort and tourist center before moving to California for almost a decade, and was now based in Sapporo. Her face seemed Ainu to me.

Sashimi, fried crab paste balls, tempura pumpkin, lettuce salad, plum wine, ginger highball, and a kimchi-nattou-raw-egg-sashimi salad we wrapped in seaweed. The latter was no less than a revelation. A dish I would make myself on a regular basis, if I lived in Japan.

I informed the Ojiisan that my tourist visa had been extended. No workplace I’d been contacting lately was willing to sponsor a work visa for me. As chairman of the Akan tourist association, I was hopeful he could be the one. Yet now he suggested hosting me in his house in Lake Akan while I worked without receiving a salary.

Bummer.

When I offered to pay after the meal, he and his friend joked, “No, we’re rich.” He’d stated the same during our soba meal. I wondered if they were joking.

I took the metro back to Cowboy’s. Yet another vocational effort that had gone to waste. If the Ojiisan could sponsor a visa for me, I would seriously consider saying yes, as much as I dreaded life in the countryside. The more I looked into this matter, the more impossible it seemed to find work in Japan as a tourist.

And to think the country was facing one of the worst aging populations in the world, and needed to encourage immigration.

As for my day trips out of Sapporo in the next few days, I decided not to return to Noboribetsu, whose kouyou wouldn’t peak until the end of the month. Another bummer. One of my favourite places in Hokkaido.

Instead, Cowboy and I resolved to rent a car on my last day, and go on a day trip to Hoheikyo Onsen and Jozankei, an area where kouyou was now peaking. He couldn’t drive in Japan with his Chinese license, but I could. It would be my first time driving on the opposite side. At least I’d be safe with him.

Today’s highlights: the impossible feats and adrenaline at the circus; the food at dinner.

16 October 2023

• 9:40-11:25 北1条西4丁目 (bus stop near Odori station) to 夜市駅前十字街 (bus stop near Yoichi station) bus
• 11:30-12:15 Nikka whiskey distillery tour
• 13:50-14:10 Yoichi station to Otaru station local train 
• Exploring Otaru (3h) which is basically just eating
• 17:40-18:35 Okusawa guchi bus stop to Tokeidai bus stop bus

Nikka Whiskey Distillery

Today’s trip outside Sapporo was planned long in advance. Reservations for the famous Nikka whiskey distillery in Yoichi ought to be made weeks in advance.

I took the metro to Odori station and the highway bus to Yoichi. The underground walkway inside Odori station was already being heated. I was cold outside in the street, yet hot inside. This was Hokkaido in winter.

Sings in Yoichi included Russian translations, just like in Wakkanai.

Nowadays, entrance to the distillery was by reservation only. I arrived just in time for my tour, which kicked off with a five-minute introductory video about the distillery and making of whisky. After learning this craft in Scotland, the birthplace of whisky, Masaaka Taketsuru had established this distillery in 1934 in Yoichi, which enjoyed a similar climate. Cool, humid, with a clean air and pure water.

Red pagoda-roofed kiln towers and the smell of smoke from peat used as a fuel. Traditional coal-fried distillation was still in use here in the production of malt whisky.

Interestingly enough, the still houses with burning coal featured the same white-squared paper decoration wrapped with a thick rope in Shinto shrines.

After the 45-minute tour, held only in Japanese but featuring signs in English, the visitors were each treated to a tray with three glasses of whisky, to mix different kinds.

• Single malt Yoichi – water and whisky
• Super Nikka – with ice
• Apple wine whisky

I was famished – not the best state to taste such strong alcohol – and not the right person to appreciate whiskey. It was of undeniable quality, albeit a bit too bitter for my liking. I preferred sweeter drinks, such as sake and plum wine.

Lunch was at a nearby seafood restaurant recommended to me by the Sapporo tourist information center Ojiisan. I had the salmon donburi with miso soup.

While eating, I noticed that my next stop – the oldest cave paintings in Hokkaido, close to the distillery – was closed today. Shame. Then I noticed the horrendously infrequent local train to Otaru would depart soon. I devoured my meal and hurried to the train station.

Otaru Canal

Finally, a return to the charming canal town that was Otaru. It felt weird to walk down those once dark and frozen streets. Plenty of visitors of the snow light path festival in February had slipped, myself included, and an ambulance had even rushed to the venue at some point.

In the broad autumnal daylight, neither snow nor ice covered Otaru now.

I walked all the way to canal park, past the ending point of the festival in the north canal, with the food stalls in front of the old warehouses and the statue of running children. Then I started back south. Defunct, old-school warehouses covered in reddening ivy made this stroll famously romantic.

A myriad of far east tourists encompassed me in Yoichi and Otaru today. I heard a lot of Korean.

Denuki Koji was the narrowest cluster of alleys I’d seen in Japan. More than Omoide Yokocho in Shinjuku. An atmospheric dining spot.

I longed to visit the western museums nearby, which included a stained-glass hall, but they were insanely overpriced, and I’d seen plenty of the latter in Europe.

Instead, I ran across tons of jewelry shops, some of which I’d recalled visiting in February. Otaru was amazing for couples: romantic strolls along an atmospheric, dimly-lit canal, incredible food, and jewelry as a present.

Some shops featured Halloween decorations, while others had already installed Christmas trees.

Sakaimachi Shopping Street

Next, the amazing Sakaimachi shopping street, where shop glittered with jewelry, antiques, and stained glass, while seafood and dessert shops made Otaru a foodie spot. It basically felt like Japan’s Paris to me.

There were Halloween decorations near the steam clock, and a small, spooky pavilion. I followed two Japanese girls who entered it. It was dark inside and full of scary decorations. One of the girls turned back and screamed in terror, as if I was a skeletal ghost on her footsteps.

At the Letao flagship store, recommended to me by Saki’s friend who had hosted me in Sapporo and taken me to Toriton, I ate arguably the most famous cheese cake in Japan. Then, a visit to the adjacent Kitakaro, the original and best baumkuchen cake in Japan.

Tanaka Sake Brewery

I ended this decadent food tour with the sake factory the same friend had recommended to me. Tanaka sake brewery, where the second floor offered a glimpse into the factory, while the first, a tasting of five kinds of sake.

Winter, spring, long term low temperature fermentation, plum wine, and shiso wine, my first time, sweet and delicious.

I bought a bottle of sake in the hope of meeting my friend again in Nagoya and took the bus back to Sapporo.

With my battery dying and the bus windows making me ponder about life, as vehicle windows always did, I recalled a piece of news I’d received on the train from Yoichi to Otaru that had agitated me the entire afternoon. Yet another person once close to me, who had promised to stay in touch, and disappeared altogether. I grew angry at this and at all the money I’d spent today. Expensive transportation, food, and presents. I bought whiskey and sake in the hope of gifting them to future hosts, and thus saving on accommodation.

All in all, this had amounted to 12,000 yen today, without even paying for a hostel. I felt so anxious about money, that I wanted to cry. How could I ask my mom, currently doing nothing but sitting in front of the news and running to shelters during missile alarms, for money, for me to have fun in paradise?

One job offer had turned out to exclude a paycheck. Another, from last night, for minimum wage, even less than the one in Israel. How would I continue to reside in this country while on the lookout for a decent job?

I just wanted to return to Cowboy’s apartment. Before my battery had died, he’d texted that he was tired. I’d assumed we’d meet at his apartment. Yet he wasn’t there upon my arrival at 19:15.

After charging my battery, I noticed a text message. He was waiting for me in Susukino, with the intention of taking me to his favorite spot in Sapporo tonight. From tomorrow onwards, he would work graveyard shifts.

The last thing I wanted to do was go out again and spend more money. But I was curious to see this spot, rather than disappoint him.

Susukino

We ate McDonald’s on the second floor, overlooking Susukino crossing and the Nikka billboard. His Swiftie friend had joined as well.

They worked at hotels on the same street and met during their lunch breaks. They were obsessed with the same things and didn’t seem to run out of things to talk about. She laughed like foreigners, rather than that typical, Japanese girl giggle; made jokes the typical shy, Japanese girl would never; and never added a polite yet distancing “san” honorific to my name.

The two of them had such a fun and intimate dynamic, that I felt envious of their friendship. I no longer had a best friend with a stable presence in my life.

After leaving at 22:00, we entered a karaoke on a whim and sang Swift songs for an hour. My microphone wasn’t working, even when I grabbed another, so I started screaming the lyrics at the top of my lungs. Cowboy thought that I was ruining the songs, while his friends laughed as loudly as my screams. At some point, he grabbed my glasses, so I wouldn’t be able to read the lyrics. I took a video of this wild scene.

The night ended with my toll rising to 15,000 yen. Even though we hadn’t visited Cowboy’s favorite spot (I still had no idea what it was), I had a great time.

Growing Apart from Cowboy

Things took a turn when returned to his apartment at 23:30.

I was watching the video of me singing without glasses, not recognizing this person.

“You look better without glasses,” he said.

I assumed he was been his usual, sarcastic self.

Glasses had been a constant weight on my nose ever since second grade. Taking them off felt like something was missing. They’d become a part of my identity.

I disliked taking them off in front of others to clean them. People in Israel had always recoiled in surprise during those instances, saying I looked like a different person. I’d been told that my eyes appeared too small without the glasses. Moreover, I’d had dark spots underneath my eyes ever since I’d turned 19 and developed sleeping issues so bad, that I’d attended a sleep clinic for a year. Glasses made these less noticeable.

“Why are you hiding your face?” Cowboy asked at present. He told me for the umpteenth time that he wanted me to get a haircut. That he thought my eyes were pretty and that he liked my face.

Now I was the one recoiling. That time he’d covered my face with a blanket and said I looked prettier was him just teasing. But I hadn’t known he liked my face. I didn’t like my face.

In early September, when renting a car to drive to Mt Fuji, Saki had remarked that my driver’s license photo seemed of an unrecognizably different person. An old picture, without glasses or bangs, taken in high school.

I explained to Cowboy that in Israel, I’d always been the odd one out. Both in my family and in society. People around me – friends, family, colleagues – had always made comments about my appearance. Hair, face, clothes, etc. Whether my grandma hating my beard, or friends telling me I shouldn’t shave. My sister calling my eyes tiny and dark spots huge. Fashion choices that people had found too feminine, and I’d learned to curb. If I had a penny every time someone had told me to get a haircut…

In Japan, I felt more at home. I didn’t have to fit in – foreigners would always stand out – and Japanese people never butted in. I appreciated how they didn’t meddle in anyone’s affairs.

None of this seemed to convince Cowboy at present. I didn’t want to discuss this matter further with him. I didn’t want him to touch me or look at me. Instead, I embraced him, because this also gave me the hug that I needed.

We grew quiet in each other’s arms. After a couple of minutes like this, it was time for slumber.

I shivered uncontrollably as we went to bed. He couldn’t understand why I was wearing socks to bed in winter. Why my hands and feet were always cold. Sapporo in October was colder than the coldest winter days in Israel.

I realized he didn’t understand a lot of things about my past. When the war had broken out, he had no idea what Palestine was.

“Is Palestine a country?” he’d asked. “Where is it? Why is there a war?”

He was shocked to learn that I couldn’t fly over certain countries. When I’d booked my flight to Japan in February through Zurich, my parents’ first reaction was: “Are you flying over Iran?”

A few weeks ago, Cowboy had divulged to me that he’d never felt home, anywhere, neither in China, nor in Japan.

I was the same. Never at home in my home country. I liked living in the UK, but I was an outsider there as well. Now, the same in Japan and Korea.

Even here, in the heavenly land of the rising sun, I’d always be at a cultural and linguistic loss.

At least we shared this woe.

In the dark, both of us sleepy and quiet, we embraced.  

“Only one person told me I had beautiful eyes,” I whispered. “Someone I had a thing with in Tokyo. He had the most gorgeous, big blue eyes… yet liked my bland, brown eyes better.”

He was supposed to wait for my return to Japan in August, yet lost touch with me in May upon my departure to Korea. Cowboy telling me the same at present threw me off, so I wasn’t sure what to think or how to react.

He turned his body away from me upon hearing this.

“You always mention people from your past,” he muttered. “That’s the biggest turn-off for me.”

He couldn’t understand why people went into their dating history with someone new. I knew very little about his. Only that he’d dated someone for seven years, and then an English teacher from Hakodate, who had ultimately left back to the US. I hadn’t felt comfortable enough to follow up this information with questions.

Some people mentioned their dating history from the get-go. With others, it could be an irritant with others. I supposed it wasn’t relationships that came with rules, but people. The rules differed between people.

“I’m sorry for bringing this up,” I whispered to Cowboy. “I won’t do it again.”

He was the one quiet now.

“Do you realize how many times I apologize to you because I say the wrong thing?” I whispered. “How many mistakes I make.”

“I just think you’re new to this.”

“Yeah. I keep making new and new mistakes.”

Silence.

“I miss being new to things,” he whispered after a minute. “I forgot what it’s like to cry over someone.”

I didn’t say how crestfallen I’d grown the day after we’d met, when I thought he hadn’t wished to see me again.

“The morning we went to the zoo, I had this moment when I was angry,” he said. “You mentioned promising someone you’d go back to a city, and planning a trip to the next city, and the next city, and I thought, ‘What am I doing? Why am I inviting you into my home like this?’”

That explained our distance that day. Ever since checking out of my hostel in Sapporo after pride, I’d been crashing at his apartment, spending my days and nights with him.

“You’re just a passenger in my life,” he whispered.

No sooner had he uttered this than memories and feelings I’d thought I’d gotten over, that day in early September, came back.

The people I was once close to, who had disappeared from my life. The people I’d grown close to on this trip yet couldn’t see again, because I’d become a nomad.

Moving from one city to another. Jumping from buses and trains, riding by myself. I couldn’t remain a fixed presence in someone’s life. Nor have someone like that in mine.

I’d been a passenger for the last 8.5 months, traveling and moving almost on a daily basis. I’d been trying to hold on to the people I’d grown close to, but failed with almost everyone.

I might’ve been a passenger my whole life.

Even when dwelling in one permanent spot. Israel or the UK. The same cycle. People had come and gone.

I could’ve hung out with friends multiple times a week, back then, but we hadn’t. I’d assumed adulthood was to blame – everyone was busy – but now, I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t sure someone wanted me as a daily presence.

My dating history had culminated in this as well. I’d formulated countless thrown-out speeches in my head in response to that. But I didn’t mention any of this to Cowboy, after my promise at present.

So it didn’t matter that I was a nomad. I couldn’t become a dweller in people’s lives even if we resided two blocks from each other. Who would leave me? I often wondered upon making a connection. Who would stay?

The word Cowboy used to describe me couldn’t have been more accurate. That was who I’d become. A wanderer; a hitchhiker. With neither a fixed dwelling, nor a fixed relationship. Be it romantic or platonic.

I couldn’t become a driver – to steer the wheel of my existence, and be in control of my fate. Even when renting a car for the first time in Japan, Saki and his friend had driven it. I’d faltered at the thought of driving on the opposite side of the road for the first time, before climbing Mt Fuji.

If life was a road, fate was a car. Some people navigated toward cloud nine. I tried to hitchhike, and found myself stripped of my driver’s license. Friends had thrown me out of their car.

Now, the tears didn’t gush out of my lids in a hot stream. They were slow and meager. I started to snivel, my eye mask growing damp.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Cowboy whispered.

I hated myself for repeating a mistake I’d swore off. Cry in front of someone I liked. But I didn’t reply. His description of me felt final.

I’d rarely felt so lonely, even with the heat of his body against mine. I wasn’t solitary. I wasn’t aching for a touch, a connection, an intimacy that was already mine. It was the idea of always commuting from one car seat to another that made me feel like I was on the road alone.

After a few minutes, I stopped crying. We fell asleep.

Today’s highlights: salmon donburi; returning to the Otaru canal; Letao cheese cake; Kitakaro baumkuchen; shiso wine; McDonald’s in front of Susukino crossing; a raucous Swift karaoke.

My favourite places in Japan for food:

• Sapporo
• Rishiri Island
• Otaru
• Morioka
• Sendai
• Asakusa, Tokyo
• Ise
• Himeji
• Miyajima
• Mt Yoshino
• Uji
• Matsumoto
• Shodoshima