Japan From Top To Bottom

[Mulboyne]

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A one hour video called Kintaro Walks Japan. The blurb says it is "the meticulously filmed and edited story of Tyler MacNiven's 2,000 mile trek from the bottom of Japan to the very top. His five-month odyssey was meant to impress a girl and to find his American father's Japanese birthplace. Tyler arm wrestled 100-year old ladies, dodged trains in tunnels and walked into the hearts of the Japanese people, quickly becoming a celebrity." Spotted on Harvey's Japan Newbie site.

[Kuang_Grade]

Gelf magazine has a story on his more recent, less successful, I Ran Iran, movie project, which documents his abortive attempt to run across Iran...in the article's preface, it has this little nugget on his Japan film.

MacNiven, 26, has experience traveling across a country. In 2005, he made his first long documentary, Kintaro Walks Japan, that told the story of MacNiven's journey walking the length of Japan. American Airlines shows his movie on flights and the film has been watched over 95,000 times on Google Video. Though MacNiven's lanky frame, shaggy hair, and goofy walk may make it hard to take him seriously at times, the Japanese anchor is on to something when, at the end of the trailer for the movie, he says: "He must have huge balls to walk that far."

http://www.gelfmagazine.com/archives/tyler_macnivens_persian_diversion.php

[Adhesive]

You know as cheesy as it was, and as much as I cringe at his typical noob gaijin antics, I have to admit it reminds me a lot of the things that I enjoyed so much about Japan during my first visit ten or so years ago.

[Mike Oxlong]

What about Alan Booth's excellent book on his walk, and Craig McLachlan's not-so-excellent copy...this has been done many, many times. Others have hitch-hiked (the Canuck), riden bikes (motorcycles and bicycles). It's fast becoming the new "gaijin in japan did something cool" fad.

[etto_neh]

... but I figured it out. He was one of the guys who $1 mil on 'The Amazing Race' (season 9). Was kinda funny that one of the legs of the race was actually in Japan, but, at least from the show, his Japanese ain't so hot. Not that I can talk, though. I think one or both went to Harvard.

[Harvey]

Whoa! I didn't know he won Amazing race!

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race9/shows/ep13/race/story/

One Million dollars is a lot of cheese...

[DrP]

Actually he split the bucks with his partner and I'm sure the friendly IRS got their share too. Still not a bad 'round-the-world' vacation for a 'hippie'. BTW - he did a 'viewing' of the film in Tamagawa a couple years ago. Did no one here see it? His fiance's father was famous for walking the entire South American -> North American Continent. So... if you wanna win daddy's approval, you gotta do what you gotta do.

I'm personally not keen on the 'I ran Iran' thang -- too condenscending and ego ridden. Rather watch the field reports from Kevin Sites.... been there, done that..

[DrP]

So --- are you the same 'Harvey' that posted the original thread?? Why wouldn't you know he won the race? It's announced since the end of the thing....

[Mulboyne]

One Man Walking

I'm Craig Stanton and in 2008 I am going to walking across Japan. By the time you're reading this I may be well on my way, or I may have even finished. I've created a map page so you can check on my progress (but please don't stalk me). Drawing a rough line across the map it's about 3,500km. I estimate it'll take about 5 months if I try hard enough but I imagine it's pretty easy to get distracted and stay in some places too long. The limiting factor is the cruel winters in the north. I hear of drift ice and snow storms and that doesn't sound like fun. My plan is to go cross-country where possible and save on accommodation costs by camping. This may be impractical by the time I reach Hokkaido at which point it's ryokans and minshukus...more...

Spotted on Keeping Pace in Japan