Mountain Road
The small apartment I am staying at is in Minami 6 Jo-dori, Sapporo. The names of streets in Japan are very hard for me to remember so I have renamed the street Mountain Road, because the building is at the feet of mount Maruyama. I am on the 6th floor so I can have a wide view of my new neighbourhood. I cannot see the mountain from the long balcony of the apartment because she is behind me, observing the same concrete and steel landscape I am observing. For me everything looks new and unfamiliar, but she has seen this scenery change and evolve through time, from rural realm to residential area. I wonder what type of people live around here. Is this a thriving part of the city? Are these buildings full of Japanese families with young kids playing within the tall concrete walls? Are there schools in the neighbourhood where they are going to learn and grow up? Is the mountain a tourist destination or a hidden spot that will mostly remain unknown to the non-local eye?
I am staying here for a month. Step after step, these streets will become my streets. Walking to the closest bus stop, to the train station, to the local coffee shops and grocery stores, discovering the parks and the alleyways, getting lost trying to find my way home, back to the mountain, will soon turn me into part of Sapporo.
Album of the day
“Moving around a lot is a good way of postponing the day of reckoning... When you cut yourself off from the life you’ve been living and you haven’t yet established another life, you are free... If you don’t know where you’re going, you are even freer.”
