It rained again today, and temperatures are close to the freezing point. I'm fairly sure I detected some raindrops today that were not falling to the ground straight, but were rather swirling like snowflakes. Imagine that, snow in Atsugi at the end of March. I've never seen that before. Obviously it only happens at a time that's inconvenient to me.
I'm still semi-rushing to get rid of my furniture: after failing to sell my fridge the disposal company picked it up today and charged me 6900 yen. Strangely enough I didn't feel bad about paying this, as I had expected. At least I know that I'm not contributing to the huge amount of waste at the Japanese roadsides.
Final preparations are almost complete. After long consideration I finally got travel insurance. Everybody I know is telling me to get it, but I am not a fan of insurance at all. It seems like a waste of money to me, and it degrades the adventure-ness of the trip. If you have insurance it's like gambling with fake money, there's no point. In my opinion the insurance business is the greatest rip-off of modern society, and yet I contributed today my getting a 2-month travel insurance for 20.000 yen. Now I can get sick, lose my stuff, drop my camera or die a horrible death from the plague and nothing bad will happen. Because I am insured.
The insurance lady put my life in perspective though: from an insurance point of view, I'm just another gaijin doing a trip around Japan after having worked here for a couple of years. It's not uncommon, I guess, and insurance companies seem to be quite used to this kind of situation. What is going to be the biggest undertaking of my life (well, except for the actual decision of going to Japan to work) is just another day at work for someone else.
Tomorrow I'm planning to go shopping for a better tent. I've got a nice list of locations to visit, so that should keep me occupied for most of the day. I'm also hoping to get a phone call from the bicycle shop telling me that the sprocket I've been waiting for arrived, but I wonder if they can really make it in time.
On Wednesday the furniture disposal company will pay me a visit. After that, all that remains is a little bit of cleaning and then I can say goodbye to my room whenever I want. Well, after sending my stuff home, that is. There's always just 'one more thing' that needs to be done before I'm ready to go. Like I said before, I'll be glad when I'm finally on my bicycle, leaving all my worries behind.
(I blogged from a cafe today. My room is too dark, cold and depressing to stay in during the daytime. In the evenings it somehow becomes cozy again though. I haven't figured out yet why my brain tells me my room sucks in the morning/afternoon even though it likes the room during the evening and night. )