This was the easy one. The rules for the Golden Week Charity Hitchhiking tournament stated you could start at any point in your own ken, and so Mike and I began our adventure in that most typical of Japanese ways; naked and surrounded by strangers. At 1pm, clothed and refreshed, I was standing in the sun with a smile and a sign, and after 20minutes had hitched my first ever hike, as Teshima-san from Fukuoka pulled over with his Phillipino "girlfriend", and I was headed to my next destination...