Holy Crap!
I just called a ryokan in Sappor and made reservations for the last two days of the Snow Festival... all in Japanese. And... I did it... correctly??? I'm half-tempted to call back and make sure he didn't think I said January instead of February. Yeesh. My heart is still pounding. How I managed, I'll never know. But now I (think I) have lodging for all of the Hokkaido trip. If only I could be sure JR will put out another train package for the new year. Host dad and I are going to the travel agency when it re-opens on Sunday to make reservations for Okinawa and then the rest should easily fall into place.

Phew.

And as a New Year's gift this morning, they gave me ichi-man-en (roughly $100) for travel and my own purposes. I feel considerably less stressed now.