Hitching and Surfing

Forget youth hostels and cheap buses. For the true backpacking experience, nothing can beat hitch-hiking and couchsurfing.

Not willing to pay $60 to travel two hours to Fukui, I look for alternatives. One sticks in my mind - hitchhike! After doing my research, I find that hitch-hiking in Japan is very much possible...if you can get t the right place. I catch a train to a tiny local station, and follow the tracks for half an hour in the hot hot sun with my heavy backpack. But by god I look tough. I put on a tough expression as I walk through the countryside, trying my hardest to look like I've walked here from Australia. Finally, I see it...The Meishin Expressway.

One of the biggest highways in Japan, anyone on the Meishin is generally travelling some serious distance. I have found one of its Parking Areas, the rest stops where people stop, to rest. Here I make my move, waiting on the road back onto the freeway with a big sign written in black texta (finding these two things was actually quite difficult)

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I wait with my thumb pointing toward the road. The book says your meant to smile, and this is no problem as I cannot help but laugh at myself. I look like a complete tool, and all the people passing by know it.

I do eventually find a lift, and am amazed. To be honest, I could not imagine the type of person that would pick me up. In my opinion, anyone who tries to hitch-hike is by definition not the sort of person you want in your car. However, I do not mention this to the person who has just picked me up. He takes me to Maibara, about halfway to Fukui. I am so excited to be hitch-hiking, and the excitement makes all the mountain scenery so much more beautiful. I am covering hundreds of kilometres...for free! The driver took the "Japanese OK" that I had written on my sign literally however, and the conversation quickly turns to the very complex. I am not sure, but I believe it focussed on North Korea, Japanese Militarization, war guilt, and the need for world peace. Here I perfect my subtle art of head nodding, and for the entire hour convince him that I am following him. I try out some new generic phrases - "I wonder how it will all be in 50 years time" and "Hmm...its a complex topic, isn't it", both of which I use when I have absolutely no idea what we're talking about. Still, I do catch glimpses of meaning, and those glimpses are very rewarding. From Maibara, I catch another lift, this time a younger guy. He works in a lolly factory! Basically he is a lolly chef, and I am very, very excited to hear this. His job sounds like the stuff of childhood dreams - one of the things he has to do for research purposes is eat lots of lollies, both his own and those of competitors, to better understand the products from a consumer perspective. Thats right...he gets paid to eat lollies.

I get to Fukui station, and laugh at the JR Station sign. You would have made me pay $60 to get here, wouldn't you! Well here I am station, here I am! I feel very proud at having beaten the system. But my adventures are not over yet, I still have accomodation to worry about. This is where surfing begins.

www.couchsurfing.com is a worldwide network of adventurous travellers, and the idea is that when one is looking for accomodation, you contact these people and sleep on their couches for free. It is indeed a fantastic idea. Even for the relatively quick stay I had, it has been a good experience - once again, getting to meet new people! We go out for $2 beer and noodles, before coming back to their place. Melissa and Stephen are English teachers from Missouri, and we hang around with their friends Darcy (from Canada) and Mami (from Japan) until about midnight. The most hilarious part of the night is when they play charades with a doll of a baby...I don't know why, but a baby playing golf looks so funny we are all in hysterics. I will post a video shortly.

I sleep very soundly on the couch, trying to get a good sleep before the decidedly sleepless schedule of Eihei-ji. I'm about to leave their house, and catch some form of transport (I'm tempted to hitch-hike again, but might give it a miss for something only a few kilometres away) to the temple. I imagine it will be something of a shock changing from my current beer and sake drinking, late night late morning, noodle slurping adventurous backpacker lifestyle to an austere monastic lifestyle, but we'll just have to see how it goes. I am indeed very excited about it. Here I go!