This is an ABBREVIATED collection of pictures and captions from my Facebook album of the same title. I wanna fill everyone in on the ridiculousness of my adventure to Nagano prefecture to go snowboarding.
Ridiculous is an understatement.
The order of this blog is PHOTO, then TEXT. Follow the story as such. Click pictures to enlarge.
I get picked up at 7:30am on Saturday by my friends Yoon, Jack and Paige in a car that just looks kind of old from the outside. The inside, however, tells an entirely different story.
This is my seatbelt. It consists of:
1) A carabiner attached to a metal part of the seat's frame
2) Another carabiner attached to that carabiner
3) A suitcase strap attached to that 2nd carabiner.
No joke. A suitcase strap. That tag right there has the "Name" "Phone Number" and "Address" fields.
The car also had buckets attached to the windows in the trunk (which had a sketchy, dirty futon in it) and in those buckets there were hammers, chemicals, rags, a weird Mickey Mouse pointer rod-thing....
It was a rape-van. Designed for rape. There's no other way to put it.
This is my seatbelt. It consists of:
1) A carabiner attached to a metal part of the seat's frame
2) Another carabiner attached to that carabiner
3) A suitcase strap attached to that 2nd carabiner.
No joke. A suitcase strap. That tag right there has the "Name" "Phone Number" and "Address" fields.
The car also had buckets attached to the windows in the trunk (which had a sketchy, dirty futon in it) and in those buckets there were hammers, chemicals, rags, a weird Mickey Mouse pointer rod-thing....
It was a rape-van. Designed for rape. There's no other way to put it.
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Here's the crew: Shotgun is Jack (hailing from Australia with the glasses), the driver is Yoon (he's from Korea).
This is Paige, she's never seen snow before (she's from the Marshall Islands).
Alright, let's do this. 7:30am, heading out, going to Nagano. Should take about 4, maybe 4 and a half hours. Let's DO IT.
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"Okay, this GPS isn't even taking us in the right direction. Like, it won't even take us on any expressways or anything. We have to turn around." - Jack Wu
It's now 11 am and we haven't even left Tokyo prefecture yet. If you look closely you might be able to see Paige and I cracking up really hard at this shit.
We saw an expressway above us and it had been going in the same direction as us for 20 minutes, and the "highway" we were on was making us go ridiculously slow - but we couldn't find a way onto the expressway.
When we finally found the onramp, and got on it, we were so stoked. Going fast, let's do this. A minute later the expressway ends and sends us in the wrong direction. I almost died from laughing at the irony, and then Jack made this realization above.
It's now 11 am and we haven't even left Tokyo prefecture yet. If you look closely you might be able to see Paige and I cracking up really hard at this shit.
We saw an expressway above us and it had been going in the same direction as us for 20 minutes, and the "highway" we were on was making us go ridiculously slow - but we couldn't find a way onto the expressway.
When we finally found the onramp, and got on it, we were so stoked. Going fast, let's do this. A minute later the expressway ends and sends us in the wrong direction. I almost died from laughing at the irony, and then Jack made this realization above.
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Taking a break, on an expressway, heading towards Nagano.
"We're on the right track now, we should get there in less than 4 hours. What's the worst that could happen?" - Jack "I'm a huge jinx" Wu [pictured above]
It's about noon.
"We're on the right track now, we should get there in less than 4 hours. What's the worst that could happen?" - Jack "I'm a huge jinx" Wu [pictured above]
It's about noon.
WARNING: CROSSING MONKEYS
other animal warning signs we saw:
Tanuki
Bears
(I'm completely serious)
I laughed too hard to take pictures of those. Like I said, I'm sorry - that happened a lot on this trip.
other animal warning signs we saw:
Tanuki
Bears
(I'm completely serious)
I laughed too hard to take pictures of those. Like I said, I'm sorry - that happened a lot on this trip.
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I'll use this picture of drive-by scenery to make a note of what has happened since.
It's now 4:20 PM. This is a quick list of what has gone wrong since our last time update:
- Jack's iPhone (which has a GPS that we're now using instead of the shitty car GPS) lags a bit, so we missed a few exits and had to turn around.
- When turning around, we had to pay some extra tolls.
- When turning around, the car got stuck in the snow. Yoon and I pushed it out.
- We drove over 20km in the wrong direction.
- Jack's iPhone started to die.
The trouble really was just beginning.
"What else could happen?" - Jack "I should stop saying things" Wu
It's now 4:20 PM. This is a quick list of what has gone wrong since our last time update:
- Jack's iPhone (which has a GPS that we're now using instead of the shitty car GPS) lags a bit, so we missed a few exits and had to turn around.
- When turning around, we had to pay some extra tolls.
- When turning around, the car got stuck in the snow. Yoon and I pushed it out.
- We drove over 20km in the wrong direction.
- Jack's iPhone started to die.
The trouble really was just beginning.
"What else could happen?" - Jack "I should stop saying things" Wu
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7 PM
We have just arrived to our hotel. If you've been keeping up/remember Jack said"What else could happen?"
Here's what else happened:
- We have to put on the snow chains. I was like "Done this before, I got this."
- They were not chains. Never seen anything like them in my life. They were made of rubber and tubing and hooks and plastic parts and metal spikes.
- The instructions are in Japanese.
- We are on the side of a mountain highway. We can't go deeper into the turn-off because there's snow. We'd get stuck. Again.
- We put the "chains" on the front wheels of the car, and think we have them semi-secure. I tell Yoon to move forward a bit to check out how they hold up. I see the back wheels spin out. Turns out it's a rear-wheel drive car.
- We put them on. Again.
- We realize they're on almost completely wrong.
- We put them on. Again.
- We've almost been hit by large, incoming trucks 3-4 times.
- Once we get them on, we move on and it starts to get dark. It's snowing heavily.
- Jack didn't know how to work the heater for the windshield (it's pretty easy, I showed him the next day) so the windshield was extremely foggy. Did I mention it was dark and snowing?
- We realize we're running out of gas.
- I actually think that I'm going to die.
BUT
- We get to a gas station, get our directions checked, get gas - everything's good.
AND THEN
Jack Wu: "What else could possibly go wrong, right?"
YEAH.
- We drive out of the gas station, one of the snow chains flies off the back. I happen to look back and notice it.
- We run back and get it.
- We put it on again. Did I mention it was dark and snowing heavily?
We have just arrived to our hotel. If you've been keeping up/remember Jack said"What else could happen?"
Here's what else happened:
- We have to put on the snow chains. I was like "Done this before, I got this."
- They were not chains. Never seen anything like them in my life. They were made of rubber and tubing and hooks and plastic parts and metal spikes.
- The instructions are in Japanese.
- We are on the side of a mountain highway. We can't go deeper into the turn-off because there's snow. We'd get stuck. Again.
- We put the "chains" on the front wheels of the car, and think we have them semi-secure. I tell Yoon to move forward a bit to check out how they hold up. I see the back wheels spin out. Turns out it's a rear-wheel drive car.
- We put them on. Again.
- We realize they're on almost completely wrong.
- We put them on. Again.
- We've almost been hit by large, incoming trucks 3-4 times.
- Once we get them on, we move on and it starts to get dark. It's snowing heavily.
- Jack didn't know how to work the heater for the windshield (it's pretty easy, I showed him the next day) so the windshield was extremely foggy. Did I mention it was dark and snowing?
- We realize we're running out of gas.
- I actually think that I'm going to die.
BUT
- We get to a gas station, get our directions checked, get gas - everything's good.
AND THEN
Jack Wu: "What else could possibly go wrong, right?"
YEAH.
- We drive out of the gas station, one of the snow chains flies off the back. I happen to look back and notice it.
- We run back and get it.
- We put it on again. Did I mention it was dark and snowing heavily?
Yoon and I rocking the complimentary yukatta. I wore mine as much as I could.
TO BE CONTINUED (briefly, later)
here's a spoiler:
This is a party bus. Yeah that's right, MORE crazy things happen.
As Peter Sellers playing Inspector Clouseau might say:
ReplyDelete"Ah, the old 'chains on the front tires of a rear-wheel-drive vehicle' ploy, eh? Very clever!"
Been there, suffered through that. Oh my.
The VERY best part, for me at least, is the "Monkeys" sign. I'd like to get several of those made up and put them up in different places at random around Oahu.