Notes from a slow train through Hokkaido

The train leaves Sapporo in the dark and reaches Wakkanai also in the dark, a fact which feels like a kind of accomplishment in March. Between the two, several hours of fields that have not yet remembered they are fields.

The thermos

A thermos of hojicha, refilled at every stop with a coin from the platform vending machine, is what makes the Soya Line into a journey instead of an errand. There is no buffet car. There is no need.