It’s been almost two weeks since we said goodbye to Ein. Initially, we’d planned on traveling with him to Sapporo to visit Seri’s aunt and uncle. We postponed the trip when his health started going downhill, opting instead to travel up there when he got better. Things changed quickly, and the week following his death was mostly quiet, reflecting and remembering. I’ll try to keep this part brief, not because I want to forget, but because I don’t want this blog to focus on depressing subjects. We still miss him—that will never change. For your benefit, I’ll keep things light going forward.

One of our first trips to Japan, on which I’d procured a minimal understanding of Japanese words, I remember telling Seri that it seemed as though Japanese people really loved talking about food. In fact, food- and drink-related words were for whatever reason the first I’d learned, and it just so happened that I’d pick them out of sentences more than any other words. There’s a term for something like this: the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Maybe there’s another term for it when learning a new language, I’m not sure.

Of course, Japanese people talk about a lot more than just food. In the past month, my head had been swimming with a wide range of topics, from golf, to official documents, but none more than time.

We’re a little over a month in at this point, and it feels like we’re starting to get settled. Government processes have begun, utilities have been (mostly) fulfilled, and I’ve even joined my Japanese class 6 months early!

Just wanted to share a quick update to let you in on a few updates I’ve made to the blog.

So, I golfed!

Well, we’re here now! The previous night, after unfurling our futons and getting the essentials figured out, we hit the hay. I’d like to say that the adjustment period was swift, both for us and for Einstein. He needed some time to figure out his new space, though, and woke us up a few times during the night by pacing around the room. I woke up at 5am to take him out, and decided to stay awake at that point. This would be a common refrain for the first week and a half. Keen observers of our lives will recall we do not have children, but it sure felt like some sliver of that experience as Einstein continued to get curious about the bedroom at 2, 4, 5am, as the days wore on.

This was it! By the end of today, we’d be on Hokkaido, “settled” (used very loosely) in Hakodate, our new home. Our plan for today was mostly logistical: After waking up, eating breakfast and using the hotel’s onsen, we’d pack up and head to Aomori. There’s a ferry there that would take us to Hakodate, complete with (predictably), a dog friendly room for Einstein. Here’s an idea of what our day looked like.

Our final full day on Honshu (the main island of Japan) started with a short drive from the hotel to Tazawako for a few photo ops. From there, we’d drive North to see Towadako and the Oirase Gorge, finally ending up at a more traditional hotel in Orise for the night. Here’s what it roughly looked like.

We woke up a bit later the next morning. We’d purposely set our breakfast time into the morning to give us some extra minutes to sleep in, since the previous day left us exhausted. We ate our breakfast, packed our things, and Seri checked us out of the hotel. But not before asking the front desk clerk about veterinarians in the area…

First things first: Even though I’ve been adding blog posts detailing every day since we landed, this pace is only going to be held for the first week, until we arrived in our now-home of Hakodate. Please don’t worry that I’m stuck in a prison of blogging about every day of our adventure.

The 25th was an exhausting day. We woke up at 5:15am and left the hotel 30 minutes later. Jet lag comes in handy sometimes.