c199b88e_Hitchhiking_in_Japan_Log__Highlights_of_trip
[Date] 10/31/08 to 11/09/08 [Destination] Aomori City [Distance] 714KM [# Vehicles] 29 [Highlights of trip] 
Lady with her baby who took me further up the road. This trip brought me past the 70,000 kilometer mark -- the distance traveled by hitchhiking since keeping statistics from August 2003. My destination was Aomori City, the northernmost city of Honshu, about 470 kilometers north of my home. I have to allow myself two days to hitchhike this distance because it is mostly by regular highway, not expressway. Going toward Tokyo or south to Osaka by expressway is quite easy due to the large amount of traffic, but to take an expressway to Aomori City I would have to first take the Ban'etsu expressway going east to Fukushima and then the Tohoku expressway going north. After waiting 40 minutes from 8:20AM at the Ban'etsu expressway entrance, I gave up going that direction and decided to take the slow but sure Route 7 highway heading north instead. Hitchhiking along regular roads long distances can be tiring, but also inspiring because though most people are going only a short distance, I get to meet more people overall. Some of the interesting folks who picked me up were: A young mother with a one year old baby strapped to her back. Four drivers who went a considerable distance out of their way to help me. A man with his wife who is afflicted with Darwinism. Her feet barely extended past the car seat. I estimated her to be about 110 centimeters tall. She was very sweet and talkative. She became a believer in Christ while in the Philippines for medical treatment. A man from the tropical north of Australia. He said he used to have racist attitudes until he fell in love with a Japanese lady, married her, and moved to Japan. Two young men whose car's gas gauge showed they were running on empty. They bought 1000 yen more gas to take me to the next town. One of them said he just came out of a reformatory. Both were receptive to hearing the message of Salvation in Christ! I clipped small mechanical device to my belt that counts the steps I take during a full day's hitchhiking. The amount was double that what it would be during a normal day around town when at home. The hardest part of the trip: It was pouring rain in mid afternoon the first day. A truck driver gave me his umbrella and let me off at a traffic light about 50 meters past a tunnel. I ran back to the tunnel's entrance for refuge from the rain and was stuck there about 30 minutes. Nobody would stop for me because the traffic was going fast and the tunnel too narrow. Imagine me standing in the tunnel with trucks zipping past me at 40 miles an hour splashing water from the wet pavement! I desperately prayed for the rain to stop. It did 30 minutes later and I got a ride to the next major city of Tsuruoka -- a good hour further up the road. From Tsuruoka due to the rain and darkness I had to take a train the rest of the way that day to Akita, but it gave me a chance to visit a drugstore family who gave me and my teenage companion lodging back in 1993! They remembered me and thanked me for seeing them again.
Hitchhiking in Japan Log
Highlights of trip