I wrote before that
hitchhiking makes me feel alive but didn’t wrote that also
sometimes it makes me feel death, the memories will be good and for
sure some moments unforgettable but there are also moments when in my
mind toughs like “I should give up” “come on, just get in a bus
and go to sleep!” “I´m sick of it” but suddenly the words of
my hitchhiking tutors came to my mind saying “hey! There’s no
point on being this worried, nobody will pick you up if they saw you
sad and blue, you better cheep up and hope for the next car to take
you” then I start signing “Mexico lindo y querido” or just
smile to everyone that sees me and hope for the best.
This time I wanted
to go east and a guest in the hostel also was planning on hitchhike
the same day as me, so I made the easiest route to the service
station to bu sure that it will be an easy trip. We took the street
car and walked for about an hour to the service station, the weather
wasn’t the best for this kind of trips but I felt it as wonderful,
being someone that has lived most of his life in the desert being
under the rain during an hour felt great!
It took us less than
a minute for find someone who could bring us near Fukuoka and I just
went with the flow and visit Fukuoka again, (to be honest I had read
that the Pokemon center there was amazing and I really wanted to
visit it), the road was good, we got some coffee and near Fukuoka the
invited us some dinner then
left us in the center of the city.
Fukuoka Red
district
We were walking around the city center and suddenly we found the red
district, places with pictures of girls in catalogs and names like
“Exciting adult club” or sings saying “how nice of you to
come!” we walked around the place and laugh a lot for the
bizarreness of the place and talking about how good or bad is the
prostitution. I’m still not sure how does it works in Japan, I know
that in some countries they are sex slaves or forced to be there or
what other motivations do they have, but I’ll read more about it.
Sleeping in a car
Next morning I planned to go back to Hiroshima so looking at the map
routes there was a road that seemed to be a main one out of the city.
I made a sing, a really bad one, with some paper and latter a decent
one with a carton someone gave me in a gas station. Wasn’t a long
walk till a guy in a black car told me to get in, I ran and got in to
the car, say hello and he explain me that he could take me to the
service station in Mitu but first we need to go to his home for
something. His English wasn’t fluent so the conversation had a lot
of loops, in his home I drank some water and then he took me to the
service station and told me that if in two hours I still there we
could have some drinks
The idea of drinks sounded better than any other in few days so I
told him that I can wait for him to finish work and then we could
have some drinks, we went back to his home and watch some Japanese
funny programs and he gave me an action figure of Koro a One piece
character telling me that was his favorite and he wanted to me to
keep it. (now I’ve watch some episodes of the anime and he looks
like the coolest guy on the history)
After that we drove around the city, went to an island near Fukuoka,
eat some snacks and then drove to another city for noodles, the store
was closes so we had some Takoyaki and then moved to Kitakyushu there
we walked in the downtown, it felt worse than a ghost town, old
valleys where easily you could see people playing cards and drinking,
most of the lights off and alleys inside the alleys, we found a
restaurant and had some drinks, octopus kimchi, fried chicken, raw
horse meat and other snacks with beer and highball, after that place
we moved to his friend bar, drinking and chatting listening to
Japanese music, sake and tequila, some weird Polish alcohol with 96%
and more sake, it was fun. I remember going back to the car and sleep
there but in the morning there was a bunch of boxes with cookies and
chocolates, some coffee and in my phone a picture of some beer and
noodles that look so good I wish I dint forget eaten them.
Early in the morning he took the to the service station in the
expressway and from there I retook my way to Hiroshima. in my last ride Sigeru Tanaka took me to Hiroshima and we had some lunch together and he gave me a great Japanese souvenir, a wooden rice pale! what more Japanese than rice? and its believed that it was invented by a monk near Hiroshima
It was a great trip and it remained me again that traveling is not much about the destinations but the road to them.
