More good news and bad news.

Shari, July 2oth, 2007

This morning Yoko served the ‘tangle’ alongside grilled fish and miso soup for breakfast. I tasted it and it was limp and bitter. Ive had worse untranslatable asian food. So, chewing and nodding an approval, I put some more on my plate. Yoko tried it too and started laughting. It had gone bad. I couldn’t imagine how unopened pickled vegetables would go bad in this cold weather but there it was being tossed into the garbage by someone who's obviously had some better tangle.

After breakfast Shigeo read me the weather report for Rausu, it didn’t look good. The weather on that side of the peninsula is always bad he told me by pointing to the map and indicating with a thumbs up and thumbs down. I took his suggestion and rode inland to Shari so I could head up to Shiretoko from the other side of the peninsula.The thing was, the weather wasn't any better inland or in Shari.

To distract myself from the deafning slaps of rain on my helmet, I played 'How many famous Japanese can you name?' I suck at this game. I could only come up with three and a half. (a half because Alberto Fujimori isn't really Japanese) The others were Yoko Ono, Midori Ito and Haruki Murakami. How many can you name?

To distract myself from my failure to name four famous Japanese, and the grim reality of a swamped campground and a potentially damp sleeping bag. I continued into town for a bowl of udon. Slowly slurping the noodles, my waterlogged feet began to warm up. So I sat there as long as I politely could. Then peeled back into my rain gear. The idea of wiggling out of wet clothes inside a cold damp tent sent literal chills up my spine. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a motorcycle shop. I pulled in and rummaged around the plastic bags for my survival phrases and pointed to 'rider house'. He took one pathetic look at me and piled me into his van and drove me to a barn setup as discount accommodation for motorcycle tourists.

Can you believe my luck! Ive got a warm tatami mat, there are hot springs, a kitchen and a washer dryer! So here I am relaxing in front of the tv watching stereotypically Japanese sports, sumo wrestling and competitive eating. All in all it was a good day.