God, what a shitty day. I had a feeling it was going to turn out bad when I was awaken by host dad knocking on the door saying it was time to go. I was having a wonderful dream that I was getting it on with a Chinese dude and couldn't make myself wake up. (I'm really desperate for some intimate male companionship.)
My backpack seemed 10 times heavier today than most days. The only difference I could see was that I had put one of the micro buckets in it in hopes of finding a microwave (which I didn't). Surely that couldn't have been it.
There was something gross in my hair when I woke up. I didn't notice until I was frantically brushing it when I encountered a small knot. It looked like dried soap but I had no time to investigate it. I'm kind of bothered by that, since I washed it last night.
School was school. The bun lady came back so I was able to eat something at break time. Afterwards, I bolted for Hiroba.
I had weird mail today. One from my aunt was in some kind of pink script-scrawly font which was very hard to read. It's weird, my aunt. I rarely talk to her, but when any of us goes away from home, she always writes to us.
I also got mail from my father, who tends to be bitter and condescending in real life, but if I hadn't known who it was from, I'd never have guess that my father would write such a cheerful, thoughtful sounding message. I guess I would have guess who it was from after all, because he told me how he fixed my sister's car, which has been broken for so long that I forgot she had it.
I had been using the provided J-winblows pc for checking mac.com and my newt for POP, but today, I absolutely could not figure out how to turn off the J-input. I had to hold shift down to type lowercase letters, otherwise the text was in all caps. After laboriously typing in a url, I said "fuck this" and set up another email account in my newt since SimpleMail can do IMAP (and totally kicks ass). Man, I luv my newt. And I hate these J-keyboards.
Anyway, I left Hiroba and went into the huge department store across the street to use their WESTERN-STYLE toilet. I got quite a surprise when I went into the booth and there was a normal toilet with a tiny toilet next to it. I guess it was some kind of potty-training thing, because it appeared to be fully functional.
I set out for the mythical Goryokaku station. On my way, I passed by a large (used?) books store called "BOOK OFF". I looked for hentai manga but couldn't read any of the spines or section headings so I went on my way. I walked. And walked. I was fucking lost AGAIN. Finally, I ducked inside the entryway of a bank and checked my map. I was closer to Hakodate station than I was BEFORE I left Hiroba. I had gone in a fucking circle. The roads here are fucking stupid and go in all directions. I learned a valuable lesson, which is never leave huge streets. When I left it, I thought I was heading onto another, but it quickly dissipated into a dense residential area which must have been where I went wrong. So that makes this my second failed attempt to locate the grossly misnamed Goryokaku station.
There was a streetcar stop close to the bank I stopped at, so I got back on the streetcar and paid another 200 yen to ride back to Hakodate station. And I would have gotten on the wrong direction as well, had I not asked the only other person at the stop which one went to the station. Man, I was confused. And pissed.
To top off my wonderful day, I'd missed the train by 10 minutes and had to wait an hour for the next one. Sure, I could've gone back out and wandered around the area, but by this point, I didn't give a damn and was real fucking tired of walking. Besides, I still had another half hour's walk ahead of me.
The walk home seemed to go really quickly. I guess I wasn't paying much attention to my surroundings and my mind was wandering. It was nearly 6:30 when I got home. Only my host mother was home. I wish the other ones would hurry up. I'm starving. I ate some of my (real) mother's cracker powder a few minutes ago but it didn't really make much difference.
I just finished another curry. Apparently a proper curry bowl is oblong. It was yummy. They ate that shit for breakfast today! Ewwww!
This afternoon after I got home, I went to get a drink of water from the kitchen, and to my immense happiness, there was a five pack of UMAISSHO ramen! My favorite! It's the only good tasting instant ramen ever produced. I'll bet when she's through with it, it will be wonderful. I can't wait to see what happens. I think we may be having it for dindins tomorrow. I'm going to buy some to bring home before I go.
All this time I've been worried about my luggage exceeding the weight limit on the domestic flight. According to the HIF booklet, the limit is 45kilos. If that is correct, (I finally did the conversion), I can't pack more than 99 pounds of shit in my suitcase. 99 pounds? Does anyone put that much shit in a suitcase? Maybe it means per person and not per case. Maybe it's just wrong. Still, I can't come close to bringing home 99 pounds of shit, so I'm not worried anymore. Maybe I should double check that.
The Nissan March is one of the most amazing cars I have ever heard of. I've not actually seen one, but according to commercials, it will download and read email to you and unlock the doors if you touch the door handle. I didn't catch why, though. Maybe it reads your fingerprint?
Apparently, many people in Japan who operate businesses live and work in the same building. For instance, a noodle shop, or ice cream parlor is usually the proprietor's home. I keep passing by houses with "ramen" banners in front of them or other food item with no visible commercial entrance. Do people actually go to these places? I never see cars at them. There's one in particular with an electonic programmable sign but the establishment looks like the back of a dumpy house and a shed.
There are cartoony squids drawn on just about everything here, like buses, trains and businesses. They all look like pink cartoon peckers with 8 little legs and big happy smiles. You can bet I'll be bringing home a picture.