Hokkaido Highway Blues

After a frantic reading marathon that started last week I'm through with what might be one of the best sources of inspiration available for hitchhikers, independent travellers and Japan afficionados: Hokkaido Highway Blues - a travel memoir of Will Ferguson, who was (supposedly, who knows really?) the first person to have hitch-hiked the whole length of Japan - straight from end to end.
In some places it is a bit biased (I'm the only gaijin here, help, all the Japanese are conspiring against me...), but, on the other hand, which travel narrative based on own experience wouldn't be? Maybe the slightly distorted view of the writer is the very charm of travel narratives? And somewhere inside me I do feel sympathy for Mr.Ferguson because even with my very restricted repertoire of encounters with the Japanese I know how annoying the stereotypes superimposed on foreigners can sometimes get (Can you eat Japanese food? Nihongo ga ojouzu desu ne...)
Anyway, I enjoyed myself a lot reading and I gained some very interesting insights into what you might be calling 'Japanese mentality'. And the quintessence: Japanese don't pick up hitchhikers!
P.S.: Thank you, Charlie, for the interesting read!