The good, the bad & the ugly

First the good news: I finalized my itinerary for Hokkaido today, picking out hostels, making reservations and looking up trains. Luckily there always seem to be helpful souls around to make phonecalls or find information for me – but I've got to admit, speaking Japanese would definitely be handy… Anyway, I'll be leaving Sapporo the day after tomorrow and will head north, towards one of the National Parks. I'll spend one night in Asahidake Onsen (Asahi-dake being one of the highest mountains), then two nights in Sounkyo Onsen (near a famous gorge), and then one night in Bibaushi (apparently countryside mindful of the French Provence), so it's going to be a whole lot of nature – and hot springs, if the 'onsen' part of the village names is to be believed… Sounds simply wonderful to me!

Before heading down to Tokyo in a week, I'll also spend another night here in Sapporo – but instead of the rundown hostel, I've booked myself into a capsule hotel! Looking definitely forward to the experience, I gotta say, especially since apparently it's very luxurious despite the good price. I only hope I won't get in trouble at the bath there because of my tattoo – I stumbled across a (very positive) review where it was mentioned that technically they don't allow tats… *crosses fingers*

Okay, so that was the good, exciting part, now to the rest. Although I did have a mostly good day exploring the interesting Historical Village of Hokkaido (and buying a couple more good-value books to keep up with my ferocious reading *g*), I'm a bit under the weather. For one I suspect that I might be running a mild fever, although it seems that I managed to get purge the beginnings of a cold that have been bothering me the last few days – and then there's my heel. Yesterday I took off my shoes on the train – and after I put them back on, the left one seemed to have developed a whole new kink. But of course I tried to ignore it, thinking that it would only turn into a small blister or something. Instead I am now in pain whenever I wear shoes of any sort (the open-backed houseshoes being the only exception), despite trying to use creams, band-aids and bandages to take away the pressure. Not good. Not good at all, considering that I'm on the road and want to see things – sitting at a hostel twirling my thumbs really isn't an option. I guess I just have to hope that this night's rest will do the trick – else my Ainu expedition tomorrow (an open-air museum and an actual modern village)  won’t be much fun at all... Already today I copped out of visiting the Botanical Garden and the museums there in the afternoon, because I simply didn’t want to walk anymore. :(

Anyway, enough whining for today. Hope everyone who reads this is doing fine! *hugs*