Guilty as Charged

Your Honour, I hereby confess to having committed a blogging felony. Having no money for a proper attorney, I choose to represent myself in the blogosphere court of law.

To the charge of “Breaking from chronology in an otherwise sequential narration,” I plead guilty. I committed this crime under my own volition, with no external aid or influence. I am of reasonably sound mind and I am prepared to pay any necessary damages or heed any court ordered injunctions that may be issued.

In hopes that my sentencing may be reduced, I request that the court kindly allow me to put forward a defence, vis-à-vis the context of my misdemeanor.

As you may have guessed, I breached the aforementioned code in order to convey the terrifying tale found in the prior post. Frankly, screaming kids are too much fun to write about.

The two days that I skipped include myriad ‘touristy’ achievements including, but not limited to, viewing sunsets, touring museums, and sampling local cuisine. In short, I got a little ahead of myself.

In my haste, I missed two noteworthy points. I apologize for such omission, and will now take to the keyboard and shamefully assume the duty I so carelessly shirked in the previous post; I will fill you in.

First, I visited the famed Abashiri Prison Museum, which has the same aura as Alkatraz in the US, or Azkaban in Harry Potter (instead of death-eaters they have teams of hyper-flatulant sumo wrestlers). The visit was engaging and interesting.

Second, I was fortunate enough to have both a tour guide for the day and a brick-and-mortar roof over my head – another welcome break from tenting.

For these luxuries, I thank directly the wonderful Eri-san, and indirectly, couchsurfing.com, which is nothing short of a young traveler’s dream come true. It’s a global community built around a website, where people offer couches, spare beds, and floorspace at no charge to those trying to travel cheaply. That description fit me pretty well, and after joining the site, a quick search led me to Eri, a really positive, outgoing girl with a passion for meeting new people and trying new things.

She took me sightseeing to a horse and llama farm, the actual Abashiri prison, and to the beautiful cape Notoro, where we had a late dinner of spaghetti and donuts by the Sea of Okhotsk.

We were unsuccessful in fighting off the enormous Hokkaido mosquitoes, but as you already know, I did manage to succeed in terrifying the (far more vulnerable) Hokkaido teenagers.

The 3:48am sunrise didn’t disappoint.

I hope these proceedings have not been unduly lengthy and can assure you that I shall henceforth submit additions to this living document known as ‘The Blog” in proper, chronological fashion.

I shall now retire to my cell to await sentencing. Court is adjourned.