Hitchhiking in Japan: kindness and a raining day
1st of May, 2025.
Before we go back to Miles accommodation, we stop at 7-Eleven and get some instant noodles for dinner. As we get to his place, and Miles goes up to prepare our noodles, the husband of the owner, the Egyptian guy, asks me where have I slept last night. I show him a photo of my camping in the park, and when I am about to tell him that I will camp by the temple tonight, he interrupts me and say: “Tonight, no camping” – and then he explain his wife’s plan to me.
They own another house, which they sometimes rent for people, and right now it’s empty. It’s about two train stations from here, and she want for me to stay there, for as long as I need. You say… what? As they are telling me that’s an empty house, there’s no furniture or anything, I am already so happy that I don’t need to camp, that I tell them not to worry about anything. I tell them that I only need to stay there two nights, as we are leaving towards the South of Japan on the 3rd of April. The kind lady even offers to drive me there, so off we go soon after Miles and I finish our noodles. I cannot believe this! How kind and nice can this lady be? They both, of course. And the universe too, not forgetting…
The house is actually really nice and very big. There’s running water, hot water and electricity. I haven’t noticed but the lady brought some blankets and bed linen for me. How adorable! After showing me everything around the house, we make the bed on the floor and soon after she leaves.
I take a nice hot shower and after working a little bit on my photos, I go straight to bed as I am exhausted after a very long day, full of walking.
Next morning, the rain starts very early. I stay longer in bed because of that, but at some point I get up and start writing some of my posts. I figure out I am in a pickle. Why? Miles and I agreed on taking easier today, and rest for most of the day, but we would still meet in the afternoon, and just go to a park or something. The thing is, I’m more than one hour walking from him, 1.5 hours to be more precise, so there’s no way we can simply walk to each other and meet in the middle. Plus, this rain sucks! But most importantly, I cannot let him know of any of this because there’s no Wi-Fi here in the house, and I, of course, have no data. On top of that, I must get something to eat! What to do?
I don’t panic! I tell myself everything will be OK. I find out on my offline map that there’s a mall not far from here, only 15 minutes walking. I decide I will tell Miles that maybe we should take the whole day to rest today, and just stay in, so tomorrow we can start our journey fresh. With that in mind, I decide to take my laptop with me to the mall, so I can do some posts on my blog, and some more work with the Wi-Fi too. I pack all my things in big plastic bags, just to make sure they will not get wet. And me? Well, I deal with the fact that I might get wet a little, but whatever. I have my leather jacket, which at least will protect my upper body; I will cover my head with a plastic bag, the from the waist down is whatever. By they way, I looked around the house, looking for an umbrella, and couldn’t find one.
I swear to you, as soon as I step outside the door, the rain stops. Laugh. Thank you, universe!
I don’t even need to make to the mall, as there’s a huge supermarket by it, with everything I could possibly need: food, Wi-Fi, a place to each and charge my laptop, and even drinking water, hot and cold. Paradise!
I love shopping for food! It’s the one thing I really love to buy. But not necessarily nice and good food, for cooking some nice dishes, no. Today, for example, I bought all the cheapest food, instant noodles and some fruits, but simply because I have more options, and cheaper options in a supermarket, that makes me happy. Yay! Ah! And I spoiled myself with a bag of pop corn! Loki, help me!
I sort everything with Miles, and we agree on a time for leaving tomorrow. As I look for a good place for hitchhiking towards South, to our first stop, Hiroshima, I again have to take a step back instead of moving forward. I tell Miles that I will hitchhike to his place, and from there we will hitchhike first to Kyoto, and from there to Hiroshima. Why? In Japan you cannot hitchhike in the express ways, and they are almost everywhere leading to the most popular destinations. So when I take a look at Kyoto’s exits to express ways, I find one big road which is a bit outside town, heading to the express way, and with a McDonald’s just by it. Perfect! We are going there. I come back to the house middle afternoon.
After dinner I watch a film and have my pop corn. Perfection.
Next morning, I have my breakfast at that same supermarket, and soon after I’m hitchhiking right in front of it.
A very nice man, super calm and quiet, tells me he can give me a lift to Hashimoto, the train station nearby Miles’ Airbnb. He stopped immediately after he saw me, and now, as we talk, I can get from his attitude, that he simply knew it that he would drive me all the way there, no matter what. Such a nice guy! I arrive about 20 minutes earlier than I should, but it’s all good so I can send some emails.
Before leaving, we have a nice chat with the couple, as the Egyptian guy is very surprised about my Japanese writing skills, and my hitchhiking too. And then we leave. We start.
10 Years Around the World 