My First Hitchhiking Adventure of 2016
On January 31, 2016 I hitchhiked from the Hanawa service area in Akita Prefecture on the Tohoku Expressway back home to Niigata city. My friend… Read More »My First Hitchhiking Adventure of 2016
On January 31, 2016 I hitchhiked from the Hanawa service area in Akita Prefecture on the Tohoku Expressway back home to Niigata city. My friend… Read More »My First Hitchhiking Adventure of 2016
It’s been my observation that most people who have never been to Japan seem to think of Fukushima as an uninhabitable nuclear wasteland. My Facebook… Read More »What is “Fukushima”?
Having fun hitchhiking in northern Japan, making new friends, and saving a bucket of cash.
Most of the Tohoku (northeast) region of Honshu Japan could fit in Lake Michigan.
June 15, 2012: The day is bright and sunny with thin and wispy cirrus clouds. Again as I did the previous week, I started off… Read More »June 15 Adventure from Niigata to Hirosaki
October 15, 2010: Today was cloudy with light showers from time to time. I needed be in the city of Kumagaya in Saitama Prefecture by 10:30AM the next day for important business. My destination was Noda city in Chiba Prefecture, about 300 kilometers from home. Noda is close to Tokyo to the northeast. From there I would make it in two trains to Kumagaya in plenty of time if I left by 8AM.
The first ride, Mr. and Mrs. Yamaguchi who were heading to Nagaoka City by regular road, went out of their way for me to take me to Sakae Parking area on the Hokuriku expressway. After waiting slightly over an hour at Sakae and getting a bit impatient, a man from the Tohoku Power Co. offered to take me to Muika Machi, nearly a 1/3 of my journey. He took me to the Muika Machi interchange.
After a few minutes it started to rain. I spotted a Jusco department store only a couple hundred meters away and walked to it. By the time I got there, it began raining pretty hard. I was glad to have shelter and eat lunch at the Jusco.
Read More »Hitchhiking on a rainy day to Saitama
But this morning I had help to get started. Rather than walk to the highway and try to hitchhike 5 kilometers to the Aomori Chuo entrance of the Tohoku expressway, the friend with whom I stayed with offered to drive me there. This gave me a 30 minute head start. My home in Niigata is 580 kilometers distance via the Tohoku and Ban’etsu expressways and I hoped to return the same day.