Hitchhiking in Japan: Osaka
28th of April, 2025.
Japan!
Am I really here? I still cannot believe it!
At the immigration everything is alright and no questions asked. But then I get a bit irritated about some declaration you must fill before leaving the airport, bu that’s just because they waited until I had all my backpacks on it to tell me that. Anyways, this irritation disappears really soon due to the immigration officers attitude right after this… As I walk pass then, after giving the filled form to a female officer, I hear they all calling me, and as I look back, some of them are running in my direction. Damn it! That’s it, that’s how I’m going to jail – I think. (Not again!) But that’s not it. They were all running for me only to stop me from leaving because I had forgotten my hitchhiking sign at the counter. Laugh. And it was a very nice and senior officer, with white hair, who was also running after me who has my sign in his hands and give it back to me. How adorable!
I walk for some minutes until a designated hitchhiking spot I have already found previously. It’s actually quite good, still kind of at the airport, but at some traffic lights. In only a few minutes, my first lift in Japan happens, a very young and stylish guy called Yuda.
Yuda has some awesome dreadlocks, a tiny face tattoo and black polish nail in his fingernails. He cannot speak English so we use a little bit the translator. He apologizes for the mess in his car, and tells me he is going back home, which luckily for me is nearby my hostel, in central Osaka. We remain silent most of the time, as he’s on the phone for a while. But at certain point, he asks me for some love advice. Apparently, his girlfriend cheated on him, thinking that he had cheated on her first, so he asks me if he should forgive her or not. I tell him that, if he still loves her, that is all that matters. Love is beyond right or wrong; as soon as you love someone, this person loves you back, and you two can be together, nothing should stop you from do that. He appreciates my answer and soon enough we arrive near Tsutenkaku, a famous land mark in Osaka. My hostel is a short walk distance from here.
“But why are you staying in a hostel, Lei? Shouldn’t you be camping somewhere?” I will. But for these first two nights in the city, I must have a hostel dorm room because Miles is also here somewhere, and we will be meeting in town, until we figure out what to do; where will we go and if we will be travelling together, for how long that will be.
I am taken aback with the price of the hostels, though, I must admit. It has something to do with a Festival which will be held for several months. I manage to book the cheapest hostel available, in a female dorm. It’s awesome and very fancy, with breakfast included, and it’s called Osaka Nipponbashi EVISU HOSTEL. Breakfast changes everyday and it’s served in a tiny restaurant downstairs, by the street.
Miles and I agree for him coming here around 15.00 hours, so I can eat something, take a shower and get some rest before we meet. Unfortunately, by that time an annoying rain starts pouring.
It’s so good to see a good and old friend again! As we cannot sit and talk anywhere outside, we aim for a shopping mall nearby, and walk under an umbrella all the way there. At least, one good thing of this big city is that, most part of sidewalks are covered.
Not so much good news for the mall though. There’s absolutely no “free space” to simply sit and talk. It’s a different kind of mall, I guess. After walking around for a while, Miles decide to get a coffee in a coffee shop, so we can sit and talk. We might not be able to stay here for much longer though, as apparently there’s this “thing” in Japan where, you cannot remain more than two hours in a space, a restaurant, a cafe or anything likewise, without ordering anything else apart from your first order. What a load of bullshit! Laugh. Anyway, as we catch up for the next two hours or so, we decide to go and look for a place for dinner.
Finding a place to eat which accepts bank card for payment and has some decent / cheap food would be one of our biggest issues in Japan. Apparently, this didn’t really happen a lot with Miles before I arrived in the picture. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that I don’t really want to / like to use money to buy food.
After some time walking we happen to end up in a lovely small restaurant, with cheap Ramen and it’s absolutely delicious! Plus some gyozas which are also out of this world of good. They are my first Japanese dish and I love it!
By the time we leave the restaurant, the rain has stopped, and it’s such a nice feeling to notice that and be able to walk freely around the streets.
As I have to get some proper rest, and tomorrow we will meet again here in Osaka (right now Miles is actually leaving half way to Kyoto, due to the shitness of his previous hostel, and the prices be more worth wise there than here in town), we go back to our places soon after dinner.
We agree to meet around 11.00 o’clock at Osaka Castle Park, and we will spend the day around there and that region. The park is huge and pretty nice. The castle is beautiful from outside but according to Miles, it doesn’t worth the 1000 Yens for the inside visit.
As we sit by the river and chat for a while, Miles reads the taro card for me. I’m the first person to whom he reads them. Yay! Everything is quite accurate and actually very good. But what intrigues us the most are the things which happen after he finishes the reading. First, as soon as I pronounce one word which came out during the reading, a very strong gust comes out of nowhere, and it lasts for several seconds. And I was just explaining to Miles that, I’ve had that same “prediction”, but as in the form of an omen, on the last week of 2024, when I was in Malaysia. A few seconds after this, Miles spot a snake slithering by us. A what? Yep! A gorgeous, kind of golden snake, pass right by us in this huge and crowded park, and it’s as we are the only ones to notice it. For those of you who are not familiar, snakes represent rebirth, a word which came out a lot during my reading. Yay!
We come up with a plan of travelling South Japan for a week or so. I got a volunteer work in a small town called Daisen, in Tottori Province, not far from Osaka, so I will be coming back North after out trip, while Miles will head to a small island further South called Okinawa. As Miles is staying in his accommodation until the 3rd, we decide it would be better if I go there with him, because it’s supposedly cheaper than my hostel. Next morning, after breakfast, I start hitchhiking towards there.
It’s funny how things work in life and we are always learning something new, even though in areas which we think we already know so much about it. I’m trying to make a plan of how to hitchhike outside of Osaka, to Kyoto, which is roughly one hour driving. Now, being Osaka a big city and all, it should be very difficult to find a place for hitchhiking within its perimeters, right? And that’s when I take one step back, instead of ahead, in order to find a good spot. There’s a good, long and straight avenue, not so far from here, which will lead, eventually, to a place near the expressway where I can hitchhike to Kyoto. So basically I must hitchhike twice: first I walk for about 15 minutes, and still in the city, I get to this avenue and hitchhike from there to an outside area called Yao; then from there I can try to catch a lift straight to Kyoto, although I will get out before that town, to the neighbourhood where Miles is staying.
In only a few minutes, Yoshi, a very nice and energetic guy stops for me. He can speak English so we chat all the way. He’s just coming back from cycling, and his bike in on the back of the car, now together with the Hulk. He asks me lots of questions about travelling, as he would like very much to do the same, and, coincidentally, he has just quit his job and is not at all happy on getting another one because he’s being thinking a lot lately about how money is really not as important as most people believe. He has even being talking with his wife about that. So yeah, I’m happy that perhaps I might have helped him with some insights, just as much as he has helped me with the lift. Yay!
The next people to pick me up are a couple who is simply not going anywhere but decide to drive me all the way to my final destination: Hashimoto Train Station. Koji and Hiroka are two lovely and very kind people, both in their 46, but looking just like my age. That’s simply a thing here in Japan, just as it was in South Korea: everybody looks so much younger than they really are. They drop me off right in front of Miles accommodation and we also take a photograph before they live.
10 Years Around the World 