Hitchhiking in Japan

Translated with Deepl and edited by me.

Our plan was to travel slowly to the west of Japan to finally take the ferry to Busan South Korea in Fukuoka. The first big section of the trip was Tokyo – Osaka, a distance of 500 kilometers which can be reached by car in about six hours and by express train in about three hours. The train would be the best way to travel, but it is very expensive to travel by express train, which costs about 140 francs per person. We read on the internet that Hitchhiking in Japan is very easy, so we decided to embark on this adventure.

Our plan was to start at six in the morning, because we planned to do the whole route in one day, however, having wathed Japan vs IReland the previous night we were a little worse for wear and only managed to get started at 09:00, which in retrospect was quite an achievement.

Rugby Evening Japan – Ireland. It was a very nice speech that John swung.

We set off in the direction of a 7-11 and got ourselves a marker and some carboard to make a sign. We read that we should only write down the direction and not the destination, because otherwise the drivers believe that they must drive you to the destination. So we figured out the Japanese for “heading west” and Mirjam very skillfully transcribed them onto the sign. Afterwards we decorated the sign, because the more beautiful and sweet a sign is, the greater the chance that someone will stop. We thought we’d take the rugby occasion and draw the result and the Irish and Japanese flags on the cardboard.

We started a little outside Tokyo at a 7/11 where the cars stopped, we didn’t even wait ten minutes and one car stopped. It was a mother with her daughter, it was a bit difficult to communicate and we couldn’t figure out where they were going. We showed them the sign and they explained to us eventually that they were going to the hospital to visit their grandfather. We decided to go with them, but when we left we went in the wrong direction and we thought we had to start all over again. Arriving at the hospital in the eastern end of town, they told us to wait, the father could speak English and will be right back. After a few minutes the father showed up with his second daughter, when he saw us he didn’t look so enthusiastic. He asked us where we wanted to go and we told him that we wanted to go west, he said that he could take us to Odawara. The mother and the daughter got out to visit the grandfather and the father and the second daughter got in and took us to Odawara. Odawara was his hometown and he told us many details about the city and secretly hoped that we would stay one night in Odawara because he was very proud of his hometown.

It was already two o’clock in the afternoon when we arrived in Odawara and we realized that Osaka is much too far for one day and we would have to do the route in two stages. We set Shizuoka as our new destination for the day. Also in Odawara we didn’t have to wait long, after about five minutes a car stopped. It was a man who was on business and can take us over the Hakone Pass to Mishima. We accepted the offer, it was a very pleasant ride, the car was very big and comfortable with a TV and air conditioning and the scenery was incredibly beautiful. We could see Mount Fuji a few times.

So we reached Mishima at about 15:00, this time we waited only about two minutes and a woman with two children stopped. She told us they were going to Fuji. We got in and had long conversations with the mother and the children. The children were very proud to show how good they could speak English, they translated for the mother because she didn’t speak English well. Halfway, the mother told us that she was a little worried because it was getting dark and nobody would take us to Shizuoka. We said that we could look for something in Fuji to spend the night in, we hadn’t booked anything in Shizuoka yet. But she insisted on driving us to Shizuoka, which is about 40 minutes away from Fuji. So we reached Shizuoka at 18:00 and booked a hotel room.

The next day we started very early, because we wanted to reach Osaka and not make another stop. The day before we had only covered a distance of 190 kilometres and there are still 340 kilometres to Osaka. The first trip was with a fisherman, he took us about 30 minutes and then drove us to the station. Something that many Japanese do, although it would be much better to stop at a rest stop to continue. From the station we walked about 30 minutes to a service area just before the motorway entrance and shortly after two young women took us shopping and huge Ireland fans. This time they drove us to a rest stop and tried to help us find the next drive, but that didn’t work out and we said goodbye.

At this rest stop we had to wait a little longer, after about an hour a woman came to us and said she could drive us to the next big rest stop. When we told her that we wanted to go to Osaka today she was thrilled and wanted to find someone to take us to Nagoya. At the next rest stop, she asked two businessmen if they would take us to Nagoya and they immediately agreed, quickly she took a photo of us to post it on Facebook.

At 3 pm we reached a big rest stop in Nagoya, here we decided to write on our Osaka sign and hoped to find someone who would go directly to Osaka. We were very lucky after about 20 minutes an older couple came to us and told us that they were going to Osaka and we could come with them if it was okay for us to have the luggage on our laps because the car was very small. We immediately agreed as we drove off they told us that the trip would take about three hours and that we should contact them if we had to make a stop. They told us that they were visiting the son who lives in Toyota. We talked a lot, both could speak English very well because they have family in America. It was very entertaining hours with the couple and we laughed a lot. At 18:00 o’clock we arrived in Osaka and toasted the success with a beer.