Hokkaido, JAPAN – When I ask my camera roll to find all the photos I took in Hokkaido between June and July, it dutifully retrieves … 5,478.
Going through them all took three days and many breaks to gaze out the window and watch the clouds pass by. These are the 10 moments, the 10 images, that felt the most significant as I reflected on what it meant to me to experience a Hokkaido summer.
My 10 images begin with the top photo. It’s a moment frozen in the back of a first-year classroom at Kutchan Agricultural High School, where calligraphy practice from each student is hung to dry.
The other nine images follow.
The allure of 7/11 ice cream on a hot day is irresistible. Convenience stores become after-school havens, where the joy of eating ice cream with friends turns into summer memories. (Annamika Konkola/YJI)In Sapporo, a street lined with shops is an artery connecting people headed in all directions. Illuminated by skylights, it leads to the rest of the city.
(Annamika Konkola/YJI)Lanterns lead the way in the darkness to the mikoshi parade, Iwanai Shrine Festival’s highlight. More than 100 line either side of the pathway. (Annamika Konkola/YJI)It’s easy to forget how much fun bubbles can be, but one of my favorite days in Hokkaido was spent blowing bubbles – big and small – with my friends. In the sun, they have the iridescence of dragonfly wings. Heads tilted upward, we watched them float away. (Annamika Konkola/YJI)Kutchan’s museum of natural history displays an organized assortment of dishes made in Japan. In a different room, they are set up as if a family is about to sit down for dinner. (Annamika Konkola/YJI)In Niseko, an ostrich farm can be found just off a windy road. You can feed the ostriches and even purchase pudding made from ostrich eggs (two new experiences for me). They seemed happy coexisting among the cows. (Annamika Konkola/YJI)At school, students prepare for the annual festival by collaborating on a “tarimaku” – a vertical banner that represents their class theme. These are the class designs from students in all three grades of high school. Students work together to design, draw and paint them. (Annamika Konkola/YJI)My host family’s street, on a day when the clouds and the flowers in my neighbor’s garden seemed to form two parallel lines. (Annamika Konkola/YJI)Sunset on one of my final days in Kutchan. The clouds framed the mountains perfectly, etching the landscape into my memory as the sun dipped below the horizon. It’s another moment I want to keep. (Annamika Konkola/YJI)
Clouds look remarkably similar no matter where you are.
There are 5,468 other moments. Compiling this list – deciding which angle of the street would be best to memorialize, which day’s snapshots of discoveries were more representative of my summer – I wondered many times: “Who decided 10 was such a special number anyway?”
But I think these 10 do, curiously, capture a lot of the essence of my experience.
In some ways, I was grateful for the task of finding the moments that, when put together, outline my version of a “Hokkaido summer.”
Memories can fill in the rest.
Annamika Konkola is a Senior Reporter and Senior Photographer with Youth Journalism International.
