After waiting only a minute at the entrance of the Kan’etsu Expressway in Kawagoe, Mr. Aikawa picked me up and took me to the Takasaka Service area. This was excellent because it is in the direction toward home in Niigata. Often I get picked up by drivers going in the opposite direction, southbound toward Tokyo. I’ll go with them as far as Miyoshi Service Area and then walk 20 minutes … Continue reading →
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6It was good weather and still early enough at 4PM to hitchhike the 48 kilometers down route 16 from Noda to Chiba city. Noda is famous for its production of Soy Sauce, and Chiba is the Prefecture capital. I was on my way to see friends before they leave Japan, perhaps this time for good. Though the distance involved was not so far, because it is the regular highway, I … Continue reading →
I had to return to Sayama City in Saitama Prefecture to help my friend Jonas clean his PC from a Trojan. Sayama is just a few kilometers NW of Tokyo. This time it took me 10 rides because it took 5 just to get to the expressway interchange in Sanjo. One lady who picked me up wanted to take me to a train station in Kamo city, but I insisted … Continue reading →
I attended a Shinto wedding ceremony of my good friends from Kashiwazaki, Nobuo and Miwako. I first met Nobuo’s father while hitchhiking on August 11, 2006, a very hot summer day. I was making no progress that day on my way to Tokyo and actually purposely caught a car going the opposite direction so that I could at least be in an expressway service area and drink as much water … Continue reading →
February 7, 2009: I needed to be in Tokyo the very next day and so I hitch-hiked to Noda City in Chiba and stayed with friends. It’s a long trip of over 600 kilometers but it only took me 3 cars. The longest ride was from Mr. Notsu who teaches mentally handicapped children. He’s from Matsui in Shimane Prefecture but lives in Hiratsuka in Kanagawa Prefecture, over 1000 kilometers from … Continue reading →
January 29, 2009 Today I went to the city of Kashiwazaki to see my friends Nobuo and Miwako. Kashiwazaki is home to the largest nuclear powerplant in the world — built right smack dab on an earthquake fault! The area was hit by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake on July 16, 2007. The nuclear reactors immediately shut down and continue to remain down at the time of this post. It may … Continue reading →
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3The fruit of my hitch-hiking adventure on January 15th was being invited to a new year’s party in Shirone, a town now incorporated into Niigata city, by the former deputy mayor of the town, Mr. Tsubokawa. I met his friends, mostly ladies, and one gentleman by the name of Mr. Makiguchi. Two of the ladies are Christians who attend the local Lutheran church. All were former English students who like … Continue reading →
January 20, 2009: Yoko and Mariko, two ladies in who appeared to be in their 20s, picked me up near downtown Niigata. Yoko lives in Toyosaka and so it was out of the way for her to take me to Akiha Ward, but she did so anyway. Yoko first took Mariko to where she parked her car, dropped her off and then took me home. They work at the Okura … Continue reading →
Hiromi I hitch-hiked to Tokyo in 5 cars from Niigata. The third driver was Hiromi, 24 years old from Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture. She took me from Sakae Parking area just after Sanjo in Niigata, to Akagi Kougen in Gunma, a distance of about 150 kilometres. I told Hiromi the Good News of eternal salvation in Jesus and she prayed with me to receive Christ! The next driver was a 25 … Continue reading →
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13The character above is the Chinese/Japanese ideograph meaning love. I’ve lived in Japan about half my life or about 27 years at the time of this post. I have been called a good speaker of what is considered one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world. Is there anything easy about Japanese? Yes! No verb conjugation! No gender of nouns! No articles (a, the) Number (singular and … Continue reading →
These photos were taken in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. Can anyone please explain what these relatively low flying jets are spraying? I know they must be spraying something. Chemtrails? I really think so! They surely couldn’t be mere vapor trails. Why do I think so? I saw a trail suddenly end while the plane kept flying! Since then I have seen them again several times over the same general area. Photos … Continue reading →
