October 23rd, 2009 
The Tohoku area of Northern Honshu, Japan. The red line shows the route I took on Route 7 along the Sea of Japan on Oct. 22nd, and the blue line shows the route I took on route 49 and the Tohoku Expressway on Sept. 22nd. The red route is longer but faster when hitchhiking, but not necessarily faster when driving directly in one's own car.
Five cars took me to Akita city arriving a little after 3PM. Akita city is 270 kilometers from home and only 57% of the distance to my destination. It took 6 hours to cover this distance, and I knew unless I could catch a single good ride the rest of the way, I would wind up hitchhiking after dark possibly in the middle of a mountain road! In this season in Japan it starts to get dark by 5PM and the sun has completely set by 5:30PM. Unless I could catch a ride going at least as far as Odate which is about half way to Aomori City, I decided to refuse any offers short of that. Normally I don’t hold out a sign showing my destination if it is too far away, but this time I decided to do so. That way only drivers going all the way to Aomori city would stop for me. If nobody stopped by 4PM, I had the option to spend the night with friends in Akita city.
Mr. Kawamoto who took me 200 kilometers from Akita City to Aomori City.
Mr. Kawamoto is a very talkative man. He asked me many questions about America, where I traveled in Japan, and how I learned to speak Japanese. I gave him an Activated Magazine.
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