Just Another Day in Winterland Hokkaido
E arly that morning, I noticed the wind first. Even from inside the apartment, I could hear it—low and restless, swirling around the building as if testing its strength. A snowstorm was clearly on its way. I checked the weather report and saw the wind speed: 16 kph. Surely, I thought, classes would be suspended. I waited. And waited. No message from the school. Which meant only one thing: school was still on. AI photo representation of my driveway to work. The drive to work felt unreal. My car swayed left and right, pulled by the force of the wind as if it had a will of its own. Along the road, I saw children struggling forward, heads down, backpacks acting like sails. Even the crows—usually so confident—were tossed into the air, helpless as they tried to cross the street. AI photo representation of a child walking to school in the middle of the storm. And yet, there we were. Whether we liked it or not, work awaited. As the hours crawled by, the weather worsened. The wind ...
