I’m at Lake Saroma, here in Hokkaido today. This is the view from my hotel room looking out to the lake.

I am thinking today about how I see this view every January. An illusion has been cast upon me. I have never seen the lake during any other season, so in my mind’s eye, it is a perpetual winter place and when I think of Saroma, I think of the vastness of its frozen lake disappearing into the distance.

Perhaps there are places you have been to, that are fixed in your mind as existing in an immutable state? These places are where we can escape to, or dream of when we are back home, back in our routines, and dreaming of further adventures.