Saturday. To bed well before ten, up but twice to take a leak (not much of a leak, something else is waking me up nights), arising with the alarm to head off on an overcast morning in a decent mood, the papers in tow, a plain waffle with sliced strawberries and bananas with a fruit cup on the side and coffee for breakfast. One must start the day prepared.

Should be more than enough sugar in those to float a couple of boats, we'll wait until we're leaving for J-Pop to take another blood sugar reading. A decent result and I'll worry much less about falling down (and missing a photograph at J-Pop) from a sudden blood sugar plunge.

Later. A reading of eighty-five taken just before setting out two hours after having eaten breakfast. I have no idea if this is good or bad, but on to catch a bus, then BART, then another bus, the 38 Geary to Japantown. The 38 Geary filled immediately after I'd managed a seat, standing room only and little of that, most of the passengers on their way to J-Pop. Which, I soon learned, was not a good sign.

Because the blocked off streets leading to the main area were shoulder to shoulder with people waiting in lines. In lines? Waiting in line for everything. Insane crowds, insane lines, too many people to find, let alone enjoy much of anything. Two hours looking for pictures that were harder to find. Was it fewer people in costume or were the people in costumes diluted by the surging crowds?

Enough photographs for a single section with none to spare. Worth going again tomorrow as I'd planned? Not if the crowds are anything like they were less than an hour after it had opened when I arrived (it opened at 11:30). But we'll see. I've just gotten home and I'm winding down. We'll cool our jets and see how we feel. Maybe run another blood sugar test to see what two bowls of cereal do to the numbers, frozen yogurt in a cup I didn't have to stand in too long a line for, eaten earlier at the festival.

Evening. I processed the pictures, a section, but just barely. Twenty-one pictures, the bare minimum. In a more perfect world I'd attend it again tomorrow, if only to take more to be sure.

Nothing on television I wanted to watch, tired, didn't pick up the guitar before heading to bed at eight-thirty, planning to watch the Swedish Maria Wern on the tablet at nine. Which I did. It finished at ten-thirty, not too bad, not too good, but tomorrow is a Sunday and we're allowed to sleep in.