Today ... From The Air

The plane ascended through the air above the patchwork known as the Tokachi Plain, a place where the green grass, the blue sky, the bright sun and the fresh air have an intensity to them.

A little over an hour later, the plane was passing over Chiba on its descent to the Tokyo Airport (Haneda) across the Tokyo Bay.

And soon came in for a landing, with the skyscrapers of Tokyo barely visible through the clouds and smog.

An hour bus ride back across the bay via the Tokyo Bay Aqualine (the world's longest undersea tunnel, almost 66 yards under Tokyo Bay),


and I was back in a different world from the northern island, but glad to be home!