Bedtime stories from Japan: Down and Out in Muroran
(Aaron) I just need to say that Tris and I HATE McDonalds; So, it was with a grim sense of irony that I found myself shouldering open a McDonalds door in the brilliant mid-morning sun on Hokkaido’s southern coast. I desperately wanted to be riding to Muroran in the most intense sun we had seen since leaving Oaria, but we were way behind on our blogging, we hadn’t figured out an exit strategy yet, we were running out of time, and the Date McDonalds was the only place within 40k in either direction with WiFi. We confirmed the Internet connection, plugged our Haulers in outside the drive-through, and got down to business, promising ourselves we wouldn’t eat anything.
10 hours latter we stumbled out into the icy darkness, sick with self loathing and sodium poisoning from McDonald’s food (hey when else will you get to try a McKatsu?), and headed to a nearby ramen joint to fuel up and take the foul McNasty taste out of our mouths. During our double-life-sentence in McD’s we had formulated an exit strategy; we would ride the next 30k to Muroran and catch an overnight ferry to Hachinohe, on the mainland, then ride the 30ish k to my mother’s house in Misawa, where we would catch up with her and try to figure out what to do with the Haulers. We hadn’t been able to find a recent ferry schedule online, but that was nothing new and we figured we could get to Muroran and sort it out. Halfway through our ramen Tris’s face suddenly took on a look of horrified fascination, and, putting his finger to his lips he motioned for me to listen to the speaker above our booth; it suddenly dawned on me that they were playing the exact same McPop CD that we had been listening to for 10 hours in McDonald’s, and based on the song, they were almost exactly in sync… That was just to much for us – we bolted to the register, payed our bill, and while running to our Haulers agreed that tonight we wouldn’t make any effort to ride prudently, it would be full bore and full throttle all the way to Muroran and the Devil take battery-conservation; it was long past time to get the heck out of Date.
All I have to say about that ride is that A) we made the 35ish k to the train station in 45 minutes, and B) I was high-siding out the cockpit of my Hauler on the screaming descent into Muroran, steering with my upper body projected over my outside wheels as I tore through the switchbacks with frozen fingers, making no effort to brake while howling to the night and rallying into the blackness and the unknown. Promise fulfilled.
By midnight we had had a close run-in with the very nice, very drunk staff of what we assume to be a small hostess-club, letting them feel Tris’s thighs and remark on their girth, but escaping before they got a chance to feel anything else. Unfortunately, by midnight we had also established that the ferry had stopped running of out Muroran, and, the next ferry was leaving out of Tomakomai at 9:15 am the next morning, some 70k up the coast. Freezing cold and slightly dejected we found a vending machine in a dark corner, plugged in, and crashed next to the sidewalk, ready to get some sleep.
In tomorrows episode Tris and Aaron cover the 70k to Tomakomai in four hours in the pre-dawn cold. Stay tuned….
2 years ago