Am significantly better today, thankfully. Need to be 100% okay by tomorrow, otherwise how to dong3 2 days/nights out in the wilderness at a ki2 siao4 rock festival?

Last night was really nice and chillax. Ben’s girlfriend Hazumi, and his French friend Melanie came over to snack and chill and play Go. Hazumi is cute as a button (like, epitome of virtuous girlfriend), and she also likes Shiina Ringo. We had a very nice conversation with each other, me in my half-baked Japanese, and her in her half-baked English (woah, trying to bring across idea of N(space)S in Japanese = can die). She made v. delicious soumen, which we had with shoyu and spring onion and ginger. Mmm, I love me some ginger. Melanie’s this total biker chick with a loud throaty laugh and an awesome sense of humour. We didn’t take any pictures mostly cos I spent half the time curling away in a corner in a sickly ball, but, like, this people actually exist, so please take my word for it.

I think I was semi courting death when I went and had ’soup curry’ for lunch today (thankfully my tummy seems to have survived the ordeal). Soup curry in that it differs from normal Japanese curry (which is sweet, and stew-like) by being spicier and soupier. It was awesome, they had varying levels of spiciness (level 1 to 14, and beyond that, they have MAX-Spicy, MEGA-Spicy, GIGA-Spicy and then TETRA-SPICY). If you’re gungho enough to try level 14 and survive it, the meal’s on the house. I was humji and just tried 5, which was sufficiently punchy. Woah. Good stuff.

I have found a buyer for my extra RSRF tickets! (yes, I have, through some bizarre stroke of luck, acquired 2 sets of tickets). This means I will have more moolah to spare back in Tokyo this Sun/Mon! =D

Though, speaking of Tokyo - I just looked at my train schedule which reads something like this:

17/8 - Sapporo to Hakodate - 0700, arrival at 1011am

(bearing in mind that it takes minimum 30mins to commute between Hakodate eki and Ben’s place)

17/8 - Hakodate to Hachinohe - Can take 1040am train, arriving in Hachinohe at abt 1355hrs, or 1128train, arriving at 1445hrs - Both are possible, because I, uh, didn’t manage to get reserved seats for this leg of the train journey

17/8 - (This I have got reserved) - Hachinohe to Tokyo - 1420hrs, arriving at 1736hrs

In a nutshell, if I miss the 1040 train outbound from Hakodate, I essentially also don’t have guaranteed seats on a train back to Tokyo, which means I might have to spend a whole day, full of win, at the station. PLUS my rail pass expires on the 17th, so if I do not get on a train back to Tokyo on the 17th, I will have to fork out an additional 9350yen for the train ride back. FTW.

Am clrly king of planning. Squee!