When I wrote this text, it was a Japanese holiday called Greenery Day (May 4th). Supposedly a holiday to make people engage more with nature. Most likely a holiday set up during the 1970s to make the average Japanese, in an increasingly urbanized country, go to the beach or to the countryside to enjoy the long holiday.

This string of holidays, a holiday megazord, if I may, is called Golden Week. There is also something along the lines of a Silver Week in August, but its boundaries are not clearly defined. This year, since it was an uninterrupted string of 10 days, I decided to go to Tokyo in the first half and to the Hokkaido countryside in the second half. The perfect mix of urban chaos and not seeing anyone but friends and the foxes on the road for four days in a row.

Awesome.

On one of these very nature-intensive days, we went to a local hot spring, the onsen, in an area close to the spot where our lodging was located. And since I was the only man in the group, I went to the male bath myself. After graduation, all the men in the group went elsewhere, in a situation that reminds me very much of ‘all my friends are bread.’

The indoor part was steaming hot. You might think this is ideal in hot springs, but not in this case. It was a room with a couple of chairs, some bathing booths, and a moderately sized indoor pool with hot water sourced from the springs. The problem was that the steam was not going out, making the room a bit suffocating. Fun times.

So, I decided to go to the outdoor area. It featured a separate bath and a spectacular view of Mt. Yotei – a renowned winter sports destination in Hokkaido.

First, it should be said that it was a fairly windy day, and the temperature reminded me of winters in my hometown, a joke by Hokkaido standards. Some 13℃, maybe? Because of that, the steam was just above the water body, and the strong winds made this steam dance around.

As I entered the outside bath, I started to think about things. And at one point, I began to wonder what the people in the countryside 200 years ago would think if they saw the steam and wind dancing and making beautiful spirals like those. Especially when physics was not exactly something you were required to study. Imagining this, I went from lost in thought to admiring the steam dance with imposing mountain in the background.

After I came to think about it, I don’t often connect with nature, but this time it was really close to the holiday theme.