Home » Japan » The Destination is not Important. It’s the Journey that Counts

It all started as a telephone conversation on a cold and dreary Tuesday evening, when Lisa and I were realizing we didn’t want to stay in Hiroshima for the long winter weekend. Our disposable cash flow was running low, putting us in quite the predicament. Times like this we wished we didn’t live in one of the most expensive countries in the world. In addition while reviewing a map, our list of places to still-visit was short, and most locales were quite a distance away, involving lots of yen to get there. We made up our minds to go to Nagasaki, but how in the world would we get there without breaking the bank? Do as Jonathan would do- hitchhike! Indeed it was on my list of ‘Things to do Before Leaving Japan’ and would be a great adventure for the long weekend. By Friday I had lined up some contacts for accommodation and Lisa learned important hitchhiking kanji like ‘in the direction of ________.’ We packed some clothes, a pen, paper, and a guidebook with roadmaps. Apprehensively we set out on our journey. Read on and learn from our “Top Ten Tips to Hitchhiking in Japan.”

The Destination is not Important. It’s the Journey that Counts

Casey Lary
2007-04-27 21:35:25

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curb. My Japanese is bad and in a rushed situation even worse, so I called Lisa over. They said they were going to Osaka so could not take us to Fukuoka since it was in the complete opposite direction. Instead we asked them to drop us off near the tollbooth next to the expressway. That would put us as close as we could get without going on the actual expressway. They happily let us jump in the backseat. Lisa and I were over the moon. We had our first car! It only took us 15 minutes when it took Jonathan 3 hours. Not really knowing what we were doing, we must have been doing something right!

2. Avoid toll police
The Osaka-bound car dropped us off in the center of the ramp where we had a perfect location to attack any car coming from any direction onto the expressway. We gave them Canadian pencils as omiyage for helping us. We gave every driver who was kind enough to pick us up a small gift to say thanks. After 10 minutes at our new location we weren't having too much luck. A few cars with young guys in them tried to persuade us to go with them to Osaka. As tempting as that was we had our hearts set on Nagasaki. We concluded that since Fukuoka was so far away, it hindered drivers from stopping.

We decided to hold up a new sign with a much closer location. We held up a new sign with Iwakuni written on it, only 30 minutes from Hiroshima. Within 5 minutes a car pulled over to the side! Victory- or so we thought. As we started running to the car, the toll police started to run towards us, hands waving in the air gesturing STOP! At first we tried to play stupid-gaijin pretending to speak no Japanese and looking dumbfounded. Then they asked for our Alien Registration Cards and realized we had been her for a year-and-a-half. We couldn't play the stupid-gaijin role this time. We started to freak out because we didn't know what they were going to do with us or if they were going to punish our gracious drivers. Lisa and I started to panic. ...