The ferry trip from Aomori to Hakodate was an important goal on our trip: we had finally reached Hokkaido and therefore cycled on all of Japan's four main islands! Pushing the bikes onboard, letting the ferry workers attach them to the wall with ropes and cushion them with blankets, climbing up to the passenger deck and falling asleep on the tatami has become an enjoyable routine for us, and we happily napped on the ferry for a couple of hours sharing a room with a middle-aged man who was driving a Japanese mail truck to Hokkaido.
But what never ceases to amuse us is the fact that while several men clad in overalls and reflective vests run around directing cars and cyclists, one of them stands a little aside and blows a whistle. He seems to be some kind of a foreman, making sure everything runs smoothly, but there's something a bit funny about four guys running around and a fifth directing them with sharp whistle blows. The same phenomenon is repeated at road construction sites - and probably a bunch of other Japanese workplaces as well.
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