Hokkaido

 Hokkaido is the northern island of Japan.

(there are islands farther north, but their nationality is in dispute between the Russians and the Japanese)

Hokkaido is Japan’s "Oregon". it looks much the same as the next landmass across the Pacific, which is Oregon.  My friend and former wife K* usually comes to Oregon in the summertime to visit me, but she didn’t come this summer or last summer either.  She visited this year for my birthday in March, but did not come at all in 2011.  Two of my former English students in Japan came instead, last summer.

K* went to Hokkiado this summer.

This is the eastern-most point of Japan, the closest to North America:

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Hokkaido University:

Which looks amazingly like Portland State University, where we both graduated from.

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The view from Mt. Hakodate, above Sapporo:

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Sapporo is the largest city on Hokkaido. 

These are the cell-phone pics she sent me; given that we have taken hundreds of pictures (nay, thousands, even) when she visits, I would imagine that there are more pictures from that trip.

If I see, ’em, I’ll post ’em.

 

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