Japan: A Country Full of Surprises

After leaving South Korea, our Sixglobetruckers set course for Japan, where they stayed for a few months.
Here's the next part of their adventures...

"We're within sight of the Japanese coast when we witness our first sunrise over the Land of the Rising Sun!"

Click on the map to enlarge it

Arrival in Japan

On arrival, it's mostly a big day of paperwork that keeps us busy. We have to go in person to register our Carnet de Passage en douane at the nearest Japanese Automobile Federation office – 50km from the port – and pick up the Japanese translation of our international driving licence at the same time, then show all these documents to customs. Next we go through the truck inspection, where wipes are used to check that we don't have any drugs, food or animal-origin items on board (Japan has no rabies). Finally, we take out insurance with the help of our ferry company, and we're finally off!

Roads unlike ours!

Quite worried about the roads before our arrival, we do indeed discover tiny cars on extremely narrow roads, which have no pavements; they end instead in an uncovered, steep and very deep gutter that wouldn't forgive the slightest mistake. Very quickly we decide not to stray from the main roads, since on the others we wouldn't be able to pass another vehicle coming the other way. As motorways are particularly expensive in Japan, we set ourselves the challenge of finding the national roads instead. Toll-free and used by trucks throughout the country, they let us keep moving, more slowly perhaps, but for free!

Where to park?

When it came to parking, the same worry arose... everywhere seemed built up, occupied, or private! So we started by aiming for the Michi-no-Eki (park and sleep) areas set up so that lorry drivers can spend the night and rest. Very handy, they offer toilets, shops with local produce, and sometimes even a rather nice view! Later we realised we could also spend the night in the car parks of "convenience stores", local shops that offer a very wide range of services. These two particularly comfortable solutions solved our parking problems, though we still enjoyed a few more rustic bivouacs, especially in Shikoku and Kyushu, which have more rural areas.

Drinking water and waste

As for drinking water, we found it regularly at the fountains in public parks, and emptying our waste water wasn't a problem either — we used public toilets or drains for that. On the other hand, it's extremely difficult to get rid of rubbish. There are no public bins, and waste sorting is draconian. The Japanese don't eat or drink in the street, so there isn't a single piece of litter on the ground, nor any real need for them to have public bins. But for us, it was a daily headache trying to get rid of our waste without dumping it illegally.

Very expensive food

With our way of travelling we save a lot on transport and accommodation, which are very expensive in Japan, but we can't cut the budget set aside for sightseeing and food. European fruit and vegetables are sold at exorbitant prices (25 euros for a melon), and usually in very small quantities. Carrots, for example, are pre-packaged individually, as are potatoes! Many Japanese people eat exclusively very nicely prepared dishes, ultimately quite varied and delicious, but with these we struggle to keep the bill below 30 euros per meal for our family of six! And we haven't even mentioned restaurant prices. In both South Korea and Japan, we ended up doubling the average budget we'd spent so far. Given the cost of living in this country, we understand why more and more people choose to visit by renting a camper van... and we crossed paths with quite a few of them on our routes.

Long live hot springs

One last practical piece of information about Japan: instead of taking cold showers in our Truck, we made the most of "Onsen", these baths built around hot springs where many people still go to wash while combining business with pleasure.

Japan: a country full of surprises

Once we got past the logistics of everyday life, we spent almost two months there and couldn't possibly recount everything we saw!
Old wooden samurai castles and their superb armour, Kyoto and its impressive temples, the geishas we watched for in the alleyways, the majestic Mount Fuji, Tokyo, which we explored for ten days and where we spent a memorable Christmas in our cell, Nara and its deer roaming free, where we bought our New Year's wishes, zen gardens, a koto lesson with Satomi, whom we met by chance and who became a friend, the whirlpools of Naruto, the rural houses of Shikoku, the peace museum in Hiroshima, the great Torii gate in the water, the active volcano Aso with its fumaroles, and the volcanic town of Beppu at its feet with its steaming waters and geyser, and so on.
We spent time in huge cities, in villages full of charm, on islands that are sanctuaries of contemporary art, and in the countryside too... Japan offers an impressive diversity of places, traditional performances and food; we're far from having seen it all, tried it all, tasted it all!

Next stop: Borneo

And yet, after spending part of the winter there, we have to continue on our way, and we're arranging to ship our truck by sea to Kota Kinabalu in Borneo!
During the 20-day crossing, we're planning a long stop in Taiwan, then a stopover in Hong Kong and Macau before joining it again in milder temperatures..."

Discover more stories from the Sixglobetruckers on their website and in the "From Brussels to Sydney by truck" series