Chapter 90
The first thing Ryosaku and his group saw when they got off the train in the morning mist was a group of peddlers selling dried fish, dried squid, fruit and vegetables.
At that time, on the platforms inside Sapporo Station, these peddlers would set up small stalls here and there, or walk around calling out to customers as they sold the fish and other food products they had purchased...Looking back at it from the perspective of the Reiwa era, it was a scene that seemed full of nostalgia.
As Ryosaku gazed blankly at the peddler with a sleep-deprived mind, he remembered seeing a similar scene in a TV commercial back when he was attending K Elementary School with Mieko.
(Somehow, this scene brings back so many memories... That commercial... they don't air it anymore... I'd like to watch it again...)
Here the group had breakfast.
Since it was still early in the morning and restaurants had not yet opened, the teacher who accompanied us bought "ekiben" (boxed lunches) for everyone at the station, and each of them finished their breakfast by sitting on a bench inside the station.
The ekiben, which could be called a "seafood bento," was made with an abundance of local seafood and was something of a "specialty" that was sure to please the palates of travelers...However, for Ryosaku, who hated seafood, it was just an unpleasant food item that he would never eat unless he was extremely hungry.
However, his physical strength and thinking ability were already weakened by lack of sleep... and he also took into consideration the challenges of the tough agricultural training that was to come afterwards... Even though he held his nose and rolled his eyes at the fishy smell of the seafood in his lunch box, he somehow managed to shovel it all down and get it all into his stomach.
