Hokkaido

Hokkaido feels like a different Japan. Big fields, birch forests and volcanic lakes, settled late and still thinly populated. The Ainu have lived here far longer.

In winter the snow is dry and deep. You bathe outdoors as it falls, watch red-crowned cranes dance in the east, and eat hot-pot by a stove.

In summer, the lavender and the long cool evenings bring people north. Either way, distances are large, so we keep to two or three bases.