For those who want to understand Japanese domestic life on a deeper level I really recommend this book by Inge Daniels, a brilliant anthropologist from Oxford University who conducted fieldwork in 30 Japanese families and studied their houses. If you're not sure about buying the book, she also wrote a great article about space and intimacy in Japanese homes that explains the concept of "body-directed-heating" that I mentioned in my previous post.
"Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go to some place where you don’t know a soul?"
— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Photos taken in the train from Niseko to Oshamambe where I didn't know a single soul ~
— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Photos taken in the train from Niseko to Oshamambe where I didn't know a single soul ~
In four hours I spent in Oshamambe waiting for my next train I only saw two or three elderly people on the streets outside of the station. The town was completely silent: most window shutters were down, shops closed, no taxis. Few cars passing through the central square made less sound than fresh snow crunching under my feet. Nobody cares to clean the snow off the roads; it just piles up indefinitely until some locals start digging out entrances to their houses with shovels. Dragging around suitcases [like I did] is not recommended.
This ocean/snow gradient was totally worth a 4-hour transfer in a god-forsaken town.