One of things that Murakami loves doing through his storytelling is transporting the reader (and his protagonists) into strange, surreal spaces. We see this happen in 1Q84, when Aomame begins to notice previously unheard of major news stories and policemen in Tokyo carrying semi-automatics. We also see it in Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World, when the narrator dips in and out of his subconscious. Which makes it totally apt (yet equally as strange) that certain Murakami stories appear to be bleeding into reality. There are apparently several Dolphin Hotels in Sapporo, Hokkaido (the Dolphin Hotel first shows up in Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase) none of which Murakami knew about before or during his writing. On top of that, Murakami also apparently received a letter from a family who claimed to be called Aomame a name that he believed he had invented himself. As mentioned above, Aomame is the name of the protagonist from 1Q84, and means green peas so it's not exactly a common surname.
