Hitchhiking Through Japan: Day 2
Suwa, Nagano ->
Chubu-Sangaku National Park, Nagano
46 miles . 3 rides
I woke up in my beautiful guesthouse room, so grateful for the beginning of this journey. I spent the morning looking at the map and making my plans for the next couple of days. There was a beautiful national park about an hour north of the city I was in that I wanted to explore for the next day or two. My plan for the day was to find rides out to one of the canyons, do some hiking around there, and then find a place to sleep for the night.
I had a lovely morning dip in the onsen (Japanese hot spring), packed up my things, and hit the bathroom before embarking for the day. I had been in Japan for two weeks now and hadn’t given the famous bidet a try yet. Big mistake. I walked away with soaking wet legs and feeling incredibly violated.
Definitely did something wrong…
The owner and all of the staff at the guesthouse were completely intrigued by the journey that I was on and they wanted to help me in whatever way they could. They spent so long looking at the map trying to decide where in town would be the best place for me to get a ride. They even helped me write my sign in hiragana. They were so kind!
I left the guesthouse and started my journey around 10:30AM. I walked down to the main road and headed north. I was carrying my giant backpack and I held up my sign reading “Omachi” for passersby to see. Any time there was a good spot either near a stoplight or with a large parking area nearby, I would stand there for a while with my thumb out to hopefully get a ride. Sadly, no takers.
After about an hour of this and a couple miles of walking, I was definitely feeling a bit worn out and hungry from not eating much the night before. I walked over to the lake to take a break and have a small breakfast that I just bought from the convenience store.
I kept walking and then paused at a redlight where I held my sign up to every car that was stopped. Finally, a couple looked at my sign, nodded yes and pointed to a parking area up ahead where they could pull over. Yes, my first ride of the day!
That was a little past noon. Long morning for sure..
Their names were Mizaho and Nao. I wasn’t exactly sure where they were going, but they saw my sign for Omachi and at least knew what direction they needed to take me in. Mizaho’s mom, Yoshima, has been learning English since she started attending church when she was little, so he facetimed her so she and I could talk and she could translate for us. She was so sweet! She said I was lucky to have gotten picked up by her son and I definitely felt lucky for sure! She told me where they could drop me off and we sadly had to end the call when the service went out.
The small talk started and I asked Mizaho and Nao what their jobs were. He works in the lumber field and she makes camera parts. I asked if they liked their jobs and they both looked at each other, laughed a little and said no, they just do them so they can buy beers. We all laughed! I can totally relate.
They drove me to Azumino, a small city about halfway to Omachi. Unfortunately, the rain had started coming down pretty hard right as we arrived and I was not particularly keen on just standing in the pouring rain desperately trying to get a ride. Also, the thought of going hiking around a national park carrying all of my belongings in the pouring rain did not sound very appealing to me either. There was a McDonalds nearby where I ran for refuge and bummed off their wifi.
I sat there considering all of my options. I would have been fine to explore the national park in the rain if I just had a place to keep my stuff when I went. Not having a place to stay that night, I sent out a handful of CouchSurfing requests in Azumino and all the surrounding towns. They were all relatively small towns, so I had pretty low hopes that I would find someone to host me.
Another option was to totally embrace the rainy-day vibes and spend the rest of the day at a library or a museum, which I would have loved. Again though, the luggage was a problem to have to carry around all my stuff and basically all libraries and museums were at least a twenty-minute walk away. That also didn’t solve the issue of not having a place to sleep that night.
I was definitely getting to a point of feeling a bit disheartened and hopeless for the day. That was thankfully right when the rain started to ease up. Looking at the radar for the rest of the day, the rain should be relatively done at least for the next couple of hours. I went back to my original plan, excited to explore the national park.
I grabbed my sign and headed back out to the main street. Luckily, I was only walking for about two minutes before a car pulled over to offer me a ride! His name was Yojey and he had the friendliest smile. Conversation was attempted, but sadly didn’t last long due to the language barrier.
The drive north was so beautiful. We passed so many rice fields and I started to fall more and more in love with Japan. I had no idea it was so green and lush.
The combination of the rain and the peaceful drive made me so sleepy and I almost dozed off a few times. Yojey drove me all the way to Omachii and dropped me off at the bus station. It’s quite funny that a train or bus station is almost always where hitchhiking drivers will bring you. I don’t know if they understand the concept that I’m trying to make this journey without using public transport. Whelp, that’s on me for not being able to communicate in Japanese. I was so so grateful for the ride, no matter where he dropped me off.
I started walking towards the mountain, holding my thumb out all along the way. Htichhiking is incredibly difficult in a city or town because everything is just moving so fast and people are focused on getting to their destination and it’s completely uncommon to see anyone do it, so no one is ever really prepared to see it. Due to this, I had to walk a few miles to get out of the main area of town before I was able to get a ride from Miu and Yushi, a dad and his daughter.
I told them I wanted to go to the national park and they drove me all the way to the Lake Ryujin Observation Area. Wow, it was incredibly beautiful. The turquoise of the lake reflecting the lush green trees of the surrounding mountains was quite a sight to see. I could have sat there for hours admiring the view.
Miu asked where I was staying and I said I didn’t have a place yet and asked if he or someone he knew could host me for the night. He said he wouldn’t be able to, but knew a campground he could take me to. I didn’t have a tent and didn’t particularly have a desire to pay money to sleep on the grass when I could just do that for free somewhere else. He asked if I wanted to ride back with him to town. I told him I genuinely appreciated the offer, but I really wanted to explore more of the park. It was so so so kind of him to drive me all the way out here and then just turn around and drive back. He seemed very concerned for me and warned me about the bears out here. I thanked him and his daughter so much for their generosity and waved them goodbye.
I started walking towards Takase Valley, which was something I was very exited to see. It was such a gorgeous walk through the valley of these incredibly lush and green mountains. I walked for I don’t even know how many miles. A few cars passed me here and there and I thought about trying to hitch a ride with them, but honestly, I just wanted to walk and see the scenery.
Although, there is one section of the road that is just a 1.2km tunnel through a mountain. I felt pretty sketched out walking through that, with the water dripping from the celling and no end to the tunnel in sight. Even though there was technically a sort of sidewalk along the side of it, I’m pretty sure it was not designed for just random people to walk there. I think it was built more specifically for people who work on the tunnel. I definitely would have been okay being in a car for that part of the road because I genuinely did not enjoy walking it. Thankfully, about fifteen minutes later, I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel (literally) and knew it was almost over.
As I emerged, knowing there was a high likelihood I would not be able to find a spot to sleep in town, I started looing for potential spots to be able to spend the night. I walked past two hotels and I went to the front desk to ask if I could help with housekeeping or play music for the guests in exchange for a free room for the night. Sadly, they both said no.
I walked down to the river and actally found a nice, flat spot under the bridge where I considered sleeping for the night. The sun was close to setting and there weren’t many cars driving back in the direction of town, so I figured this may be my best option. I really wished I had a tent with me to keep the bugs out, but I had to work with what I had. I used all of my cardboard signs to make myself a little mat. I dumped all my clothes out onto the mat to make a nice, comfy spot to sleep and then I walked over to put my feet in a nearby natural hot spring while I drank a lukewarm beer and watched a beautiful sunset.
Sadly, I didn’t know I would be sleeping out there, so I was not prepared with food. All I had left was half of a granola bar and some custard pastries. Whelp, that will have to work. As soon as the sun was down, I ate what was left of my food and went to sleep early. I was actually able to sleep for a couple of hours, but then woke up and was wide awake.
I had no chance of falling asleep, so I walked out to one of the massive rocks in the middle of the river to lay down and look at the stars. If I could spend every night for the rest of my life sleeping under the stars, I would be so fulfilled. I could sit and watch the stars for hours. They are so incredibly captivating, miraculous, and so humbling. They make you feel so small, but in the best way. I was so excited to actually catch a few meteors as well.
I knew I needed sleep though, so I tried to doze off again, but it was not happening sadly. So I did a bit of reading, a bit of writing, watched an episode of Gilmore Girls and was finally able to fall back asleep around 1:30. I was able to sleep until around 5:30, was up for a bit and then slept again until 7:30 ish. When I was sleeping, I actually slept really well. It got a bit chilly in the night, which was honestly incredible. I had been sweating profusely for weeks at that point and it was so nice to actually get to curl up in my jacket for the first time in forever. There were a few bugs here and there, but I was pleasantly surprised that they were not terrible as I had imagined.
This was definitely one of the weirder places I had ever slept, but hey, it was free and I got to sleep under the stars in a national park in the mountains of Japan. It makes for a pretty great story!
“Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road”
-Walt Whitman
