#209: The first deliveries - 2011-01-10

They quickly left the park, located several blocks to the south of JR Hokkaidō station. It was twenty minutes to eight in the morning, and there were school students in the streets already. Some agreed to meet at a coffee shop to eat breakfast; the Martínez Gómez family ate breakfast there too. A cup of coffee with milk and a dish with scrambled eggs with a secret spice recipe (extremely tasty) were the unanimous choice for all those who were present at that moment.

Rosa wasn't in the mood to talk with strangers. The coffee shop (as it's customary in Hokkaidō, unlike in the rest of Japan) had central heating, and the temperature change didn't please her, despite the difference between inside and outside didn't exceed 15°C. However, her attire attracted the attention of more than one schoolkid that wanted to know her.

- “ What did they say to you, Rosa? ” - Clara asked her.

- “ They asked me why I wasn't in school clothes. I told them that we were chilean tourists and that in Chile we were in summer vacations. They told me that at some points in January school got closed because of the weather, but that now there was little snow so school would be open anyways. ”

- “ They call *this* 'little snow'? ”

- “ Yes. In mid January they could barely get out from their houses. ”

When they finished breakfast, they went to the street again. Now the temperature change hit everyone else, mainly Hugo and Eliana, who started coughing. Fortunately, they brought cough mixture and acetylsalicylic acid.

The first point was, precisely, the school of those schoolkids who met at the coffee shop. Rosa asked the guard for some “Satoshi Miura” (though Rosa mispronounced it as “MYOO-rah”; it's “Mee-oo-rah”). The guard showed his identification to Rosa, and took a jewel case from a drawer, wrapped in a paper sheet with a message in Korean. He put them at a plastic bag and asked Rosa to bring them to an address in Tōkyō. He wouldn't open the package that Rosa gave to him until he was back home.

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The second point was to the east, in front of a river that crossed Sapporo. The drawing shows a primary school five blocks from the place, and I drew it to show how was the weather at that time of the day.

That was a very high class office building, and at that time the office workers were in a queue to enter the elevator. The doorman, upon hearing our heroes speaking in Spanish, decided to attend them in the same language:

- “ Good morning, gentlemen. What can I do for you?

- “ Sir, we're looking for Mrs. Yoshiko Asahitani. We come on behalf of Mrs. Akihiko Uguisude. ”

- “ 25th floor, office number 2508. ”

- “ Thank you. Say... Do you know if Mrs. Asahitani knows English or Spanish? ”

- “ Yeah, she speaks english and spanish. She also speaks french and russian. ”

- “ Thank you. ”

Then Juan looked to the queue of people for the elevator, then looked to the stairs, and then stared at Eliana.

- “ ... I think I have the package for Mrs. Asahitani. ” - Eliana responded while opening her backpack. Fortunately, the package didn't weigh more than 500 grams. Unfortunately for the building's inhabitants, the stairs were metallic and very noisy; the sound effect was similar to that of a hand drill, advancing upstairs at a rate of three floors per second.

No more than two minutes passed, and Eliana entered again from the building's front door.

- “ I didn't want to take the stairs again. Simply, I launched myself from a rope from the lady's office's window. ”

- “ And did she give you any package? ”

- “ No, but she gave me fifty hundred yen. ”

- “ For Mr. Uguisude? ”

- “ No. For me! ”

Effectively, Mr. Uguisude didn't need any money, he had plenty of it. But he was at the hospital, and lost a leg because a wall fell over it, and he couldn't get contact with Mrs. Asahitani. The Martínez Gómez family couldn't walk much far away from that building when they saw that an helicopter was taking off from the building's ceiling and flying south, defying the snow that kept falling in a gentle but steady way in the city of Sapporo.

- “ That's her. ” - Eliana noted, pointing to the flying vehicle, that quickly disappeared between the clouds. - “ She said that she was going to take a plane from Chitose, 40 kilometers from here. ”