Sapporo - Sa-bore-o

Mission accomplished!

I found the stupid bookstore.

Why was I being so ignorant? Clearly when the writers of Lonely Planet put a dot on a map of Sapporo and labeled it "Kinokuniya Books", they meant that Kinokuniya Books was over a mile away from that dot. It's so obvious!

After that little victory, I did absolutely nothing all day. Having exhausted most of Sapporo's tourist locations yesterday, and faced with the prospect of entertaining myself for twelve hours until my overnight train left at 10 PM, I just kind of strolled. And sat. And ate. And strolled some more. And looked at some crap.

Speaking of crap, I had the worst bathroom experience of my life today. The only good thing about it was that it was a Western style toilet and not a Japanese style squatter. If it had been, I would have just given up on this country altogether.

Anyway, I go into the stall, and the first thing I notice (after the extremely detailed drawings of very graphic homosexual acts on the wall) was the lack of toilet paper. Luckily, I had been forewarned of this, and even though I didn't bring a roll of toilet paper or tissues or anything from home, many businesses hand out on the streets packets of tissues with their advertisements printed on the package, so you think of them on just such an occasion. Which I think is brilliant. However, I don't remember the exact businesses I wiped myself with, but I'm grateful nonetheless.

So thankfully I had a packet of tissues I had received today in my pocket, and crisis number one was averted. But once I sat down, the entire stall went crazy, like dropping a deuce was the magic action of the day in Pee Wee's Playhouse. The wall started yelling something at me - because, really, why shouldn't it? - while some little speaker behind the toilet made gurgling noises. I jumped up, thinking I had offended the bathroom wall, and the toilet flushed. And flushed, and flushed, and flushed. It wouldn't stop flushing! So I just continued with my business while the toilet flushed with no end in sight, the speaker behind the toilet made gurgling noises, and the wall screamed at me. The whole experience scared the shit out of me (ha HA!)