Yay

bhudson is here. He's asleep on the futon in the other room and I am still buried under my kotatsu in the TV room.

All I really did today was get up, go to the airport to get him, come back... that in itself took like 5 hours, since we rode the cheaper trains both ways instead of the Skyliner. The Hokuso line is so new that it's not on Google Maps or on my Daiso transit map yet.

Also, apparently whatever company he has his iPhone with locked it so he can't just rent a simcard. That also kinda sucks.

Benoit's vegetarian, so I tried to think of somewhere we could go around here for dinner and decided on Otoya because I knew they have various noodle dishes and veggie side dishes. What I didn't realize was like, you order a plate of greens, and it comes with katsuobushi fish flakes and those annoying little white fish that we always had buried in rice at school. Yuck. I had the tatsuta karaage and it was YUMMMMYYYYY.

Tomorrow we're going to go around Tokyo. The next day we might embark on our big trip... or not. I am so bad at planning. My idea is something like:

Jan 3: Tokyo->Tottori (via Himeji and Okayama, I think -- gonna cheat and shinkansen a bit)
Jan 4: Tottori->Kokura (via Matsue and Shimonoseki)
Jan 5: Kokura->Miyazaki (via Oita)
Jan 6: Miyazaki->Kumamoto (via Kareigawa)
Jan 7: Kumamoto->Kokura (via Saga, hopefully Saga Kita HS ;) )

Then in theory we meet up with cdinwood, and either I return to Tokyo on my own or we all go off somewhere together or something, during the 3-day weekend 8-10. I've heard they're interested in going to Koyasan but I have no clue yet. I guess the nice thing about Deanna-style travel is that I often improvise, as all I really need is my train timetable book, a Seishun 18 pass, and my Toyoko member's card, and the tracks will lead me somewhere.