While my webpage has happily been updating itself as if everything were fine, I have actually been having the worst week due to a mysterious cold that slowly crept in on me Monday last week and rapidly got worse. Now I have had plenty of colds during my time in Japan but this was actually the first time for me to be really sick with a fever and also provided me with my first visit to a Japanese hospital where they stuck a 20 cm stick up my nose (lovely) and gave me a bunch of mysterious looking drugs. Anyway, I'm starting to feel better now and am planning a trip to Hokkaido next week. I hope I'll be back up to strength by then.