I woke up pretty early, but didn’t get out of bed until 7am. I went to the upstairs lounge to make a pot of coffee (oh yes, they have real coffee and drip coffee machines). There was no toaster in the upstairs kitchen, so I ran to the downstairs kitchen to make toast. I pretty much had the whole upstairs lounge to myself, and enjoyed a quiet morning.
My right eye has been irritated and red for a couple of days. I noticed I was scratching my eye a lot beginning in Matsushima, so even on the ferry I took my contacts out straight away only putting them back in before getting off the ship. Again, I took them out before going to the pizza party. It was still very bloodshot in the morning, and I was starting to get worried. Around ten, and still wearing glasses, I went to a pharmacy to see what kind of eye drops I could get. It was a rough conversation with the pharmacy employee, but I bought some Visine. Hopefully, just wearing my glasses more will allow whatever it is to heal in a day or two.
My plans for the day were to mostly just hang out and rest. I thought about going to a swimming pool, but the closest public pool is pretty far away. I thought about watching a movie on the big screen TV in the lounge, but my hard drive wouldn’t work with it. Still wanting to watch a movie, I plugged it into my computer, but discovered that the “smart” TV had done something to screw up my hard drive. I took a nap, studied Japanese for a while, and around 5pm headed up to the Odori Park, for the last day of the Sapporo Ramen show. On my way, I swung by a money exchange shop that had a much better rate than anything I saw in Tokyo.
With my usual luck the ramen showcase finished early, and they were breaking down the stage and other temporary facilities as I got there. The other festivals (lots of barbecue) were still going on, but I had my heart set on ramen and really didn’t want to pay 500 yen for a single skewer. I did grab an ice cream from one tent though. Hokkaido is pretty famous for its dairy products, as if I needed an excuse to eat even more ice cream.
I found a ramen shop in a shopping arcade and ordered a fully loaded ramen with a side order of gyoza. It was mind blowingly good and I felt almost drunk as I headed back to the hostel, where there was another event scheduled for 7pm. The sake party, which cost 1000 yen to join, had much smaller attendance than the pizza party. In fact, it was basically just two guys who worked at the hostel and me until two Japanese women also joined. Well, if I had been craving an immersive experience in Japanese, I certainly got it.
There is a computer science/electrical engineering conference going on in Sapporo this week, and a bunch of attendees are staying at the hostel. Two of them, one from India and one from Malaysia, joined the party after returning from the conference’s opening ceremony. That didn’t really tip the balance towards English, but it was good. The party ended at midnight and I went straight to bed pretty drunk on all the sake.
| Visine | 615 |
| Lunch | 488 |
| Ice cream | 350 |
| Ramen & Gyoza | 1280 |
| Sake Party | 1000 |
| Total: | 3733 JPY (RMB 257.6) (USD 37.33) |
Running Total: 38835.3 RMB (USD 5628)
Daily Average: 326.3 RMB (USD 47.30)