Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan [Paperback]

There are two common starting points for travelogues. One is a desire to pursue ancestral roots. The other is a drunken bet. Hokkaido Highway Blues is the latter. After too much saké, Canadian travel writer and English teacher Will Ferguson finds himself following the Cherry Blossom Front, the route Japan's celebrated pink sakura follows. It announces spring, flowering in a wave from the southern tip Cape Sata, through Kyushu, Honshu and Hokkaido islands, to Northern extremity Cape Soya.

Zen says that, "To travel is better than to arrive". This is something people Ferguson encounters cannot comprehend. They offer to pay his train fare. People tell him the journey is impossible, since Japanese never pick-up hitchhikers. Naturally, they're wrong. "When you are a hitchhiker, people spill their lives into your lap," Ferguson says, "because the hitchhiker is a stranger, a fleeting guest, a temporary confidant". He meets tens of fascinating characters, from priests to golf enthusiasts. Their stories are used to explore Japanese culture better than a guidebook, from Shinto to sea gods, pachinko to senpai/kohai (teacher/student roles).

Ferguson, also author of The Hitchhikers Guide To Japan, clearly has a deep knowledge and passion for the country. He's an eloquent writer and his monologue is poetic and spiritual (though with plenty of cheap jokes too). It explores the massive and mysterious country beyond Tokyo, a magical fairyland of monkey islands, wild ponies, active volcanoes, hills, golf courses, beaches and gambling towns. --Sarah Champion

This work recounts Will Ferguson's journey through Japan, as he hitch-hikes and follows the path of the cherry blossom or "sakura" moving from one coast to the other.

The book follows Will Ferguson as he hitchhikes 1,800 miles north through Japan following the Cherry Blossom Front (Sakura Zensen). The arrival of the blossom is a national event in Japan, eagerly tracked on television bulletins, and besides marking the end of winter and the start of the business cycle it facilitates a burst of heavy drinking disguised as a communal meditation on transience.

Surveying the country from the not quite private, not quite public, position of the passenger seat, Ferguson sees the Japan not written about in guide books, but gets to the heart of this intriguing and contradictory country. This is a laugh out loud, warm-hearted account with a generous helping of satire. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

WILL FERGUSON was born and raised in the former fur-trapping settlement of Fort Vermilion in the backwoods of northern Canada. Fortunately, he managed to escape, and he has since travelled throughout Latin America and East Asia. Indeed, he prides himself on having gotten utterly and hopelessly lost in more than a dozen exotic locales. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.