Sapporo’s a similar size to Brussels, Belgium, apparently. I think I can handle that. It looks like a really nice place. Snow is probably too much to hope for this late in February, though. One last full day to sort out everything I’m going to do and every place I need to be, then I’ll be off on Saturday.
I can’t really remember what I did today; it all sort of disappeared in a blur. It’s not like I wasted it watching videos, no. I still haven’t cracked. But it’s all a blur of Word documents, travel sites, so on and so forth.
I watched the latest episode of Better Call Saul. Only three episodes out so far. It’s super frustrating, as I’m used to watching TV shows in one big binge session. Especially if it’s a good show. I can usually marathon an entire season in one go. Well, I probably wouldn’t bother with it if it was bad, anyway. But Better Call Saul is great, so far. And to make up for the lack of episodes, I started rewatching Breaking Bad, casually. This all sounds contradictory to my previous statement that I didn’t waste all day watching videos. That part was true. I waited until the evening after I’d made my spaghetti bolognaise to watch any videos. I just meant to watch it casually, but because the show’s so addictive, I wonder if I’ll end up rewatching all five seasons. Well, it was either watch Breaking Bad while I was eating dinner, or watch Silence of the Lambs, so out of those two, I thought Breaking Bad would be easier to watch whilst eating.
Apart from that, I’m just really nervous that I’ve missed something out, concerning plane tickets, or hotel bookings, or anything. It would suck if I got to Kansai Airport and discovered I forgot to do something so the tickets were rendered invalid. I’m pretty sure I’ve done everything that needs to be done. It’s just that Peach Airlines wouldn’t recognise my bank card details so I had to pay for the tickets in a convenience store, which I’ve never done before, and I hope I did it right. Never had to do that in the UK. I also didn’t pick any seats, as that costs extra, but I’m worried in case it’s something mandatory (I don’t think it is), and then for that stupid reason they might not let me board. Or at least, not let me on the plane until everyone else was sitting down. That would suck. Not as much as being told I couldn’t go to Hokkaido, though.
Still. I’m looking forward to getting out in that fresh air. Looks like the weather will be good for flying on Saturday.
It’s a pity I didn’t think to stay overnight near Lake Toya, as there’s a famous hot spring near there. Such a shame. Well, seeing as this hopefully won’t be my last visit to Sapporo (as I still have the Snow Festival to see to at some point in my life), maybe I can do it some other time. This trip will mainly be about Hakodate, as it’s quite a way away from Sapporo, and I may not get another chance to go there.
Oh, hang on. For some reason, the image of the South Park version of Matthew McConaughey being sucked into a vortex just popped up in my mind. I guess because I only just realized that was an Interstellar reference. That happens to me, sometimes. I have unexpected epiphanies about certain actors in certain movies.
Well, that last thought probably made no sense to you whatsoever, unless you watched episode 4 of South Park season 18. “Handicar”, it was called.
Oh! That reminds me, I had another epiphany today. I saw Michael Mando in Better Call Saul. Not sure this is really a spoiler, he just plays some token bad guy, but I recognized his name in the credits, and I was like, where do I know that guy from? So I Googled him, and I remembered that I’ve actually met the guy. He was at Manchester MCM Expo 2013, signing video game posters. He’s the voice of Vaas Montenegro in Far Cry 3. I queued up for an hour and a half to meet him, dressed as Roxy Richter from Scott Pilgrim vs The World. He was really sweet, and we had our photo taken together. He signed a poster for me. Well. Not for me. It was for my then-boyfriend’s sake.
I know my cosplay is super half-assed. And that I look really fat. Shuddup.
I’d tried playing Far Cry 3 on agh, what’s the word… not campaign mode, the other one… co-op mode? Ugh no, the one where you just do all the shooting practice… I think Call of Duty has it as well… freeplay mode? Fuck, it’s been so long since I was near a gaming console. I’ve forgotten all the gaming terminology. Wow, now I really feel like playing video games… but anyway, back to the point. Yeah, I tried to play it, but because it’s FPS (first-person-shooter), and I absolutely suck at shooting games (I never completed Half Life because of it), I gave up. I was at my then-boyfriend’s house, and he rolled his eyes at me after I gave up after camping behind a fence for like 30 seconds.
I think we also tried playing Resident Evil on the same day, but I gave up 3 minutes into a freeplay co-op game, because if you didn’t already know, I am scared shitless by zombies, and I would freak out every time they came sprinting in my direction. Then some of them snuck up behind me and I was like NOPE NOPE NOPE and quit. Speaking of Resident Evil, its name is Biohazard in Japan. I think there’s a Biohazard ride in Universal Studios Japan. I’ve gotta go there.
Unfortunately the trip to Hokkaido will also be a reminder of my ex, because in the anime Lovely Complex (set in Osaka, by the way), they all go on a school trip to Hokkaido, and Otani and Koizumi go to Hakodate for the day. I told him to watch Lovely Complex because it was one of the funniest (yet emotionally feel-worthy) anime I’d ever seen. Still is. I haven’t watched a lot of anime since, so it still comes out on top.
On the subject of video games, my younger brother will also tell you that I get so absorbed by video games (probably due to the interactivity), that I have huge physical reactions every time something scary happens, which really annoys him. When he was playing Bioshock and I was watching him, and those people come running out of the darkness, I would jump out of my skin, and he’d be all like, “it’s only a game! It’s not real!” I’d do the same whenever I was trying to leap from platform to platform in Portal 2, and I’d lean back really far and then extend my body forward as if I was actually attempting a jump, and make faces as I do so, and noises. My heart would actually beat faster out of nervousness. If the TV monitor with the game footage hadn’t been there for context, I’d probably have looked like a madman. No wonder my brother hated it.
The same for whenever I was too scared to move from my spot in Tomb Raider, the rebooted version, in case a guard found me and strangled me. I took an age for me to complete Tomb Raider on easy mode. Kind of embarrassing. Again, more of a shooting game than a puzzle game. I suffered due to bad maneuvering. Portal and Portal 2 were alright, though. You can take your time to solve the puzzles. The only problem comes when you have a time limit.
Anyway. Enough about video games. Time for bed.
naiveinnippon 