c199b88e_Hitchhiking_in_Japan_Log__Highlights_of_trip
[Date] 08/29/08 [Destination] Aomori Prefecture Misawa City to Tokyo [Distance] 700KM [# Vehicles] 8 [Highlights of trip] 
The dark line shows my journey from north to sounth. Click the map to see an enlargement. Traveling 700 kilometers (about 440 miles) in a single day was even stretching my faith a bit because it's 230% further than I usually cover in one day. I left my friend's house in Aomori (the northernmost area of Honshu) at 9AM and reached Tokyo a little after 8PM, exactly when I hoped to arrive! In all 8 vehicles picked me up. The 4th driver was impressed with the distance I covered by 2PM -- about half way as far as Hanamaki in Iwate ken. He told me that he has no doubts I'll make it the rest of the way. I caught the last ride just before it got dark at a service area near Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture from a man who said he is a Christian! In the last 10 years since I've been hitchhiking in Japan meeting at least 3000 people, only a dozen or so have called themselves Christians -- only 0.3%! Even more amazing was the 300 kilometer return trip to Niigata the next day. Only minutes after arriving at the expressway service area in Saitama just north of Tokyo, I heard a voice calling my name. Lo and behold, Daniel and Reiko, close friends, were standing by their car at the gas station waving to me! They had just visited Tokyo Disneyland and where returning back to Niigata, and of course they where glad to take me home. A gasoline station worker was surprised when Daniel and Reiko called me because he saw me hitchhiking a couple minutes earlier. He asked Daniel, "Was it a coincidence that you met up with your friend?" I myself wouldn't call it "coincidence" or "luck" as another person did. I like to call it "God's set-up". Because friends took me back home, I'm not including this distance in my hitchhike statistics.
Hitchhiking in Japan Log
Highlights of trip