MY FINAL DAY IN HONSHU...FERRY TO HOKKAIDO

I woke up in my capsule both excited and nervous because I would be crossing the sea towards Hakodate, Hokkaido. This is the final island of my journey and its northern cape is the finish line. I checked the ferry schedule and figured that I’ll try to make the 2:15pm departure out of Aomori. That gave me enough time to check out the samurai houses that open at 10:00am here in Hirosaki. Before that, I figured I’ll shop around for some gloves that I lost the day before. As I was riding down the main street I saw a hardware shop so I figured I’ll check it out; not much is open on Sunday mornings. The lady there ended up being really nice and I told her about my trip. She spoke Tsugaru-ben, which is a local dialect of the area. It was pretty hard to follow…but I could pick up what she was saying mostly. She gave me a pair of work gloves and another pair of leather gloves for 1000 yen which was a great deal. Then she gave me a few more gloves like the ones you use for gardening.

I went to McDonalds afterwards to get my deluxe breakfast, I’m hooked on those things. Coffee is a big boost in the morning as well. There were some American military guys in front of me, they were stationed nearby in Misawa…didn’t know they had bases this far north. I only spoke briefly with them. The breakfast took close to ten minutes to come out…not very fast food. I downed it and headed back to the capsule hotel to pack. I checked out from the hotel and headed to the samurai houses. They were neat, you can go inside and look around…very simple, not much in the houses but that is how they lived back in the days. We live like pack rats compared to how they lived. There are 4 houses you can go inside of, but other private residences in the area have also maintained the old style houses.

I ended up leaving a little later than I had planned so I sort of rushed it to Aomori. The road was really wide with enough space for me to ride without worrying about getting hit. I stopped to eat ice cream at a conbini and rode on thinking that I was barely going to make it there on time. Sure enough, I made it there just in time but I didn’t have time to eat anything for lunch and I didn’t have any snacks with me. Once on the ferry, all they had were vending machines and the only food they had were cup noodles.

The ferry ride takes 4 hours, soI tried to kill time by writing more postcards, doing a little bit of research, and walking around whevever I got ancy. The ferry was pretty empty, they only have floor seating lounges. Most people slept on the floor during the ride. They had a counter with chairs in the vending machine area. Outside the wind was frigid so I would go outside only briefly.

Finally the ferry arrived to Hakodate, the sun was setting and it was cold. Luckily the gloves I bought from the lady kept my hands warm and I made it over to the business hotel I was staying at for the night. I took a shower and did my laundry while I walked around town. They have a fish market area full of restaurants. Most were closed already but one of them had a huge octopus in a tank, and inside they had more tanks full of all kinds of seafood. In the morning, it should be fun to check out. I found a ramen shop around the corner so I ate spicy miso ramen for dinner.