A mother and daughter who went out of the way to take me to my destination. Oct. 3, 2009: It rained hard during the evening and early morning, but by 9 AM the rain subsided. I needed to go to Kanazawa city in Ishikawa Prefecture for business the next day and opted to hitchhike rather than taking the bus in spite of the possibility of more rain later. I’m sure … Continue reading →
Yoko Kosaka Sept. 22, 2009: This is a continuation of my previous post. The return to Niigata from Aomori took me via Misawa city, the location of a large USAF base close to where I visited a friend to help him with his Windows Vista PC problems. Yoko Kosaka took me on the first leg of my journey. The next day it only took 4 cars to take me the … Continue reading →
The Tohoku area of Northern Honshu, Japan. The red light shows my usual route to Aomori City, and the blue line shows the route I took on this trip. The good Lord blessed my vision and faith by providing a sweet couple who took me all the way to Aizuwakamatsu in Fukushima the very first ride! They didn’t want to take the Ban’etsu Expressway but rather took route 49 instead. … Continue reading →
An 85 year old man who picked me up. Sept. 4, 2009: After waiting about 15 minutes for a ride to get to a friend’s house on the other side of town, an elderly gentleman offered me a ride. I didn’t want to ask him his age for he looked quite up in years. Instead, I asked what he does. The man said he has been retired for 30 years … Continue reading →
Natsuki (22) who took me to Echigo Kawaguchi August 18: On a hot summer day I traveled in four vehicles 330 kilometers to Chiba city located east of Tokyo. The last driver went out of his way to take me right to the very door of my destination! The first vehicle was a truck carrying long steel bars. The driver, a young man, said he needed to drop the bars … Continue reading →
Mr. and Mrs. Itou August 11: Today is the last day of my road trip since last July 25th. It took only 4 vehicles from the Suita Service area in Osaka to get home. Two of the drivers went way out of their way to help me! During the 8 days I hitchhiked in this trip, I traveled 3036 kilometers in 33 vehicles. One of them was a motorcycle! (See … Continue reading →
August 8: It was fine weather, a Saturday and close to the beginning of the Obon Festival when family travel long distances to their home towns. My destination is Mount Rokkō in Kobe, a distance of over 600 kilometers. I never hitchhiked to the Kansai area in a single day from Oita, but because of the 3 positive factors in my favor, I decided to go for the gold and … Continue reading →
Youji and Miki August 5: I hitchhiked to Oita City down route 10, a distance of over 60 kilometers in only 3 cars! The first driver, Mr. Kihara saw me standing outside a hospital hitchhiking and wondered if I was a disabled man who needed help! He turned around and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was hitchhiking to Oita city and he offered to take … Continue reading →
New friend Shizu with Mannah, daughter of Caleb and Tabita The third driver was a lady, Mrs. Kuwahara. She has been married for 6 years but has no children. It turns out she has a problem with her husband. It’s not uncommon for drivers to pour out their heart and personal problems to me. With women especially I try to listen without offering advice. I learned that women often feel … Continue reading →
August 2: Today I needed to travel as far as Fukuoka City in Kyushu – a long distance of over 600 kilometers and unfamiliar territory passing through Hiroshima city which is the halfway point of this trip. Though I got off to a very slow start of less than 10 kilometers the first hour, I knew from experience my pace would get faster and faster the closer and closer I … Continue reading →
July 30: After a short wait at Hamamatsu Nishi IC, Mr. Sawaguchi took me to the Miai parking area near Okazaki. He said that he picked up a Christian pastor before from Niigata! The hardest part of this trip was to get past Nagoya. I waited two hours at the Moriyama parking area. A dozen people offered me a ride but they were only going as far as Komaki or … Continue reading →
July 28: Today is low atmospheric pressure throughout Japan with intermittent and sometimes very heavy rain. My destination is Hamamatsu City in Shizuoka Prefecture, the city I visited on May 26th this year. I’m travelling from Osaka and the distance is only a fraction of my previous trip from Niigata. Nevertheless the trip wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. I had to take refuge from the rain from time … Continue reading →
July 25: Today is the start of a 3 week hitchhike adventure from Niigata in Northern Honshu to the southern island of Kyushu. I won’t go directly to Kyushu from Niigata because others in the Honshu area are asking me to visit them first. This turned out to be good for my schedule because Kyushu today was drenched with torrential rain! Heavy rainfalls are frequent this time of year in … Continue reading →
July 19: This is actually the continuation of my previous post of my adventure to Kita-karuizawa. Word Press apparently doesn’t like long posts! Today I’m on my way back home from Shiojiri City in Nagano Prefecture. There was a low pressure area all over Japan, but except for a few drizzles of rain in the early morning in Shiojiri, it still looked OK to hitchhike. The first driver was a … Continue reading →
July 17: The purpose of this trip is to visit new friends, Brian from the UK and his Japanese wife Mieko. They spend their summers in Kita-Karuizawa near Mt. Asama in Gunma Prefecture, which is about 370 kilometers or 230 miles from my home. They first contacted me because of their interest in this blog. I had never met them face to face before. Though Kita-Karuizawa is in Gunma, I … Continue reading →
June, 21, 2009: Today is my 59th birthday. I went to one of my favorite traffic lights to hitchhike to downtown Niigata City to meet a friend to do some street evangelism. The first day of summer was a hot one, about 31 C. Though there was a lot of traffic waiting at the red light, everybody was ignoring me. After about 10 minutes I heard a voice calling from … Continue reading →
