December 12th, 2009 
The red line shows my proposed route to Aomori. The green line shows where I wound up -- in Tokyo.
My mission: To bring back home to Niigata a Shizu dog from friends who are unable to give her the care she needs any longer.
My problem: Rainy weather in Fukushima prefecture
Reason for problem: I probably should have taken the slow but sure route to Aomori along the Sea of Japan where the weather was better that day instead of gambling on catching a ride on the Tohoku Expressway.
Result of problem: To escape the rain and possible health problems as a result, I accept a ride going the opposite way to Tokyo!
Details: It was cloudy in Niigata when I started off at 8:15 AM. I walked about 20 minutes to a main highway that headed toward Fukushima. The first vehicle was a truck that took me to route 49 and Agano City. The wind was so strong in Agano it was difficult to walk toward eastward, the direction I wanted to go. I had to lean my body in the wind to keep falling over!
Three rides later I got as far as Aizuwakamatsu City from where I hoped to get on the expressway with a car going to toward Sendai. It started to rain but not very hard and I had a good umbrella. After waiting an hour in the rain with no success (though there were plenty of cars with Sendai license plates passing by), I got discouraged and took a break at the local KFC. I debated on aborting the trip and returning back to Niigata.
After my break about half an hour later, I headed out again, this time to a different location just before the toll booths. I didn’t hold out a sign of my destination because I decided to leave the direction of travel in God’s hands and take the next car no matter which direction it would go to escape the rain.
A friendly man pulled up saying he would go to Koriyama City. This city is in the general direction I had hoped to go.
The rain in Koriyama is even harder than it was in Aizuwakamatsu. A police car pulled up and the two officers tell me I cannot hitchhike just before the toll booths at the expressway entrance, but they don’t mind if I do it before the entrance ramp on the normal highway. One officer then escorted me off the expressway after writing down some personal information about me. I don’t expect any future problems from this. The police are mainly looking for criminals or visa-ovestayers.
About 20 minutes later two men pulled up and offered me a ride. They were going the opposite direction I intended to go, to Tokyo. By this time the rain was so hard my attitude was “any old port in a storm” and so I accepted their offer. I’m sure glad I did because later I found that I could get a highway bus all the way to Aomori from Tokyo even cheaper than I can from Niigata though the distance is 200 kilometers further!
Though my trip to Aomori was delayed by an entire day, I was able to stay with close friends in Tokyo with the opportunity to meet other friends the next day. And the people who
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