6 Month - Japan

Status:

Days on the Road: 182
Travelled Km: 41.740 Km
Location: Obama, Japan
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Ok friends, it has been a very long time. After I spend a few weeks in San Diego I finaly was able to use my credit card to book a flight to Tokyo. But before that I was going to fullfill my promise to my friends in Phoenix to come by again! I started very early Hitchhiking in the morning the Highway "On Ramp" was right across the Door! First ride is with a Guy from Jamaika in a "Porsche Cayenne", now the only stereotype group to have hitchhiked with I am missing is an elderly couple! :) I was catching rides very easy, I got offerd food 3 times and was getting water from everybody. Only nice people and the longest I had to wait was 1 hr but I was standing at the highway. My last ride took a 30 miles detour and droped me right in front of Rachels house, right about when it started to turn dark. I had 3 faboulous days with awesome food and good drinks at different parts of the city. The last night I only had 3 hrs of sleep, woke up very drunk, and had to get ready to catch my Bus. I wanted to go with Greyhound since I had to make sure I would get to LA to catch my flight since there would be no refund! But as it is, when there is time pressure than things dont work out. I arrived at the station but then had to learn that the bus I intended to take was allready booked. I had to wait another 3 hrs, for the next. But surprise, surprise, the Bus was delayed for over one hr. The ride itself was relaxed and I had two seats to myself to achive some comfortablity. But when I arrived it was already 12 in the night, and I was far off the Subway. It took me about another hr. untill I reached the house of Lucas but when I arrived there I did not want to ring the bell since I knew he had a bunch of surfers allready. I instead went to 24hr restaurant arround the corner, catched the last beer of the night and had a beansoup n vegieburger.
After hanging out there for a while and talking to the waitress, I went back to the house. I was lucky to catch the wifi and had some funny conversation with friends from Belgium/Ger which made the night pass by very quickly. In the morning, while I was sitting at the steps there was a humming bird flying half an arme lengt right in front of my face for 10 sec and looked me straight in the eyes. That was just so amazing and totaly worth sitting half the night out on the streets! When I finaly got in went to sleep for a couple of hours! The next morning I took of early and made it to the Airport. Just before boarding was starting they called out my name via speaker. They wanted me to sign a paper that the Airline informed me that I might get rejected at Japanese Imigrations, since I only had a one way ticket! That kind of scared me. But when
I arrived in Japan, Immigration was the easiest so far. They did not even ask ONE question, phew!! Now I made my way to my Hosts place, i dropped my stuff and off we went to one of the many downtowns arround here. We visited some maiden Cafes which I learnd are world famous and have their origin here. I visited many places in downtown,
Japan is so much more crazy than you can Imagine from all the stories. I think stereotype is just the perfect word, and I don´t mean that in a negative way, they just live up to their reputation, which other country only to for their negative ones! :)
For my birthday my host and I met up with some other couchsurfers, from the US, UK, Mexico. We went for some cheap drinking, but Japanese, on average a little smaller than, than German folks, dont seem to drink to much. After 1 Beer and I guess 3 Cocktails and 1 B52 Shot we where still pretty sober, so we went for some more Beer and Sake at 7-11. Now well prepared we headed to, as I have been toled, to on of the top 10 Clubs of the World, the "Womb". Finally some fine Clubing untill the earlie morning, and we had a lot of fun :)