People often praise me as being "social," but that is actually not true. I used to find it very difficult to socialize. It was particularly horrible when I was in my twenties. Back then, I could not speak to a girl. While I zealously read and studied articles like ʻHow to Lose Your Virginity' featured in popular magazines like "POPEYE," I became tense the moment I was alone with a girl. I just could not communicate with the opposite sex. Therefore, as you would expect by now, I was never popular with girls.
So, being young, I decided to set out on a journey. The landmark of youth: "the search for myself." Mine was, however, not a "journey around the world" or even "a journey around Japan." It was a five day trip of western Japan using the Seishun 18 Kippu (A five-day-pass that allows unlimited travel on the Japan Railway). That was it. Kinosaki→Tottori→Kurashiki→Dogo Onsen→Kochi→Kyoto. I ended up with such an itinerary trying to pick places I had never been.
Being a worshiper of Beatnik, I made no reservations, carried no sleeping bag, and set out with a notebook and several paperbacks packed in my bag. At Tottori station, where I arrived via Kinosaki on the last train, being short in cash, I spent the night on the floor of the station yard. An aimless journey, indeed! I jotted down poems a la Japanese-made Ginsberg on the cold linoleum floor or wandered about the dark and empty station like some suspicious person to while away the time.
However, it took only a few hours before I became totally homesick. There were too many mosquitoes distracting me from sleep and it was terribly lonely. I called a friend from a pay phone by the Kiosk and continued annoying him with my whining. Looking back at it know, I think that the twenty old me acted way too cowardly!
Having had enough of sleeping in the open, I learned to take my rest while traveling on the train. My journey was simply riding trains. I watched the scenery change from the its windows and missed my mother's cooking while watching the setting sun.
I ended my journey in Kyoto. When I was aimlessly walking the downtown district in heavy rain, a woman (who appeared to work at a nightclub) called out to me from her car. The sight of me wandering in the rain without an umbrella must have caught her attention. She gave me a lift to a cheap inn and handed me an envelope as she said good-bye. Inside the envelope was five thousand yen. Extremely touched, I wept.
The social person I am today is anxious to thank her. I wish to say "thank you" from the bottom of my heart.