Hitchhiking in Japan: Beppu
5th and 6th of May, 2025.
I only have some nuts and coffee for breakfast. We leave the station quite late, after 13.00 hours. When I ran back to take my socks which I almost forgot drying by the sun, a guy starts talking with Miles. He is going to Beppu, a town on the way to Aso, and through the Eastern coast, which is the route I really wanted to take.
Hirohash and his friend Higash are Jehovah Witness and are travelling to meet some friends. They leave nearby Aso, which is a small town on the bottom of the mount, and they are going there tomorrow, it seems. Hirohash is really excited to meet us and super happy to help. It’s cute how he’s always describing what will be his next move or what he’s about to do.
The drive down to Beppu is beautiful and Miles and I are surprised about the amazing views, the mountains and so much green everywhere. It’s simply gorgeous! When we arrive to Beppu, Hirohash drops us off right by the beach, in an international university. I figure he was thinking some of the foreigners could help us. But they don’t even know if we can camp by the beach or not.
We stop briefly by the beach. It’s not bad. I wish we could spend some time here, even though there are a few foreigner students around. Too many. But as we are both starving, we star what would be a long journey to find something to eat. It’s like the universe conspire against me buying food. We cannot find any reasonable / open restaurant which accepts credit card. In a country like Japan! It really makes me angry, which is, of course, elevated by the fact that I am hungry. We finally find a suitable restaurant inside a mall. After eating and felling better, we must find a place for camping.
As there are no really suitable parks nearby or on the way to our hitchhiking spot, we decide to ask in a church. It’s too late though, and nobody answer our call when we ring the bell. We could camp in the backyard of the church, where there’s a playground and what looks to be a church school for kids, but as the gate is closed (not locked, just closed), we think it could be considered breaking in and quit the idea. There is an empty plot right across the street, and we decide that this could be a reasonable place for it. But as it’s raining quite a lot, we wait for some time at the laundry nearby.
It’s a 24 hours laundry with AC and big couches. There’s nobody here but two machines are on. At first we are just waiting / resting here, but soon enough we consider stay here overnight, instead of camping. There are no signs saying that it’s forbidden. Laugh. We both take one couch each and try to sleep. Miles manages, as he doesn’t’ hear when a voice comes out of a speaker, and says something in Japanese. I’m pretty sure it is some kind of warning. By this time, there’s another person here too, a young man, but I have no idea what are his reasons. When the second “warning” comes out, I tell Miles that I think we should camp.
We take turns, so our bags don’t need to get all wet while pitching the tents. While I am pitching my tent, Miles looks after the bags in the laundry, and then I do the same with him. It gets a bit wet but not that much.
I was thinking that we would wake up to people coming for the church but we actually don’t. Still, we leave the place quite early.
The weather is still shitty, and after making a new sign at another gas station, we wait for some time until a lovely lady called Totakama finally stops for us. She is only going to a small town called Yufuin, but as we are waiting for quite some time already, we decide to take it.
She drops us off in a great spot, and then something funny happens.
As I enter a shop to use the toilet, I make eye contact with a guy. As he looks really cute, I look back again to him, and he does the same. Laugh. While I’m waiting for the toilet to be free, a lovely woman comes out of it, and she is very friendly to me. What isn’t my surprise when, as I come outside the shop, these two people are actually a couple, and simply by seen our hitchhiking sign which is hanging around, tell us they can take us to the viewpoint where we are trying to go, a place called Daikanbo Lookout, just before Mount Aso. Yay! They are both very cute and stylish.
Xunitchi and Massami cannot speak much English but as we tell them our travel stories they are very surprised. As we arrive to the viewpoint, we cannot see anything! Laugh. Everything is covered in a thick fog, and we can barely see one metre ahead of us. We get our things inside the building, take a photo with Xunitchi and Massami, and then they leave.
This building is quite big, with many seats and tables but it says it’s forbidden to bring outside food inside. What? They also have a small restaurant, coffee shop and some groceries / souvenirs. There’s also a machine for hot / cold water, but it says it’s only for food purchased from the shop. How picky! The information desk, with leaflets and other stuff for tourists is well equipped, way better than many other places I’ve been. They close at 17.00 hours, so we decide to make our camps before that. We could’ve waited until they leave, and as apparently there’s no cctv, we could’ve camped by the buildings, which would keep us protected from the bad weather which was about to come, but it’s not as we actually have a place to stay and “hide” ourselves until they completely leave.
As we ask the stuff, they seem very nice and keen to help. Their manager not so much. He says we cannot camp near the building (why not? There’s nobody there, no cameras or gates, if we want to still something, we didn’t need to sleep by it, we could just come back here in the middle of the night…) and send us far into the nothing, by a parking lot.
The fog is so strong that our things are getting all wet. Once we get to the spot, we notice that the wind is super strong here, making it even difficult to put up our tents. I walk back to the building, all furious, but with the intent to, in a peaceful way, try to make the manager change his mind and let us camp here. He doesn’t but he shows me another area, in the grass and nearer to the buildings, where there’s a small hill behind us, so the wind would be less strong. After that, they drive away in a van altogether, all the employees and him.
10 Years Around the World 