jake9115 wrote:by the way i spent a good deal of time professionally driving and working in an ambulance at night to earn money as a grad student, so it's not like I'm some asshole who can't drive!
Does that make you an asshole that can drive, or did I read that wrong?
Anyhoo, good idea about borrowing a car. To continue with the Gunpowder Highway theme (it's actually the Saltpeter Highway, but that sounds like a metaphor for anaphrodisiacs):
FYI, you can view quite a bit of both ends of that road (Hwy 54) on Google Streetview to get an idea. It appears the area around Bunao Toge (Bunao Pass) is definitely blocked off and overgrown, so toughing it through is not an option. You could do a one or 2 nighter up from Kanazawa, then back around, another night on the east side of Bunao Toge, and then back down and kick around the UNESCO World Heritage Site villages of Shirakawa and Gokayama, maybe with a splurge on a stay in a real Gassho B&B (I can recommend the good ones). You could then take Gifu Hwy 360 over the hump to Hida Takayama and Hida Furukawa, both groovy little olden towns, and much cooler in summer than the lowlands.
Anyways, here is another plan I dreamed up, staying with the microexploration of one area, in this case, Hokuriku: take a slow train from Tokyo to the Sea of Japan coast, say Shinetsu. It's about 4 hours and 3000 yen by Shinkaisoku. You'll probably have to transfer, as there are few through trains with the Kaisoku. Then, down by train by the same method to Kanazawa. Again, 4 hours-ish, and 3000 yen. Stay a night at one of the guest houses there for about 2500 per head. Rent a car out of Kanazawa and drive up the Gunpowder highway, around to the Gassho Line, and maybe even out to Noto Hanto / Wajima. Back to Kanazawa, drop off car, and go on from there. You might also be eligible for the Seishun 18 Kippu, which is 12000 for 5 tickets. One ticket is good for one day, but they are only good at that price on regular slow trains and Kaisoku.
Another micro-exploration idea would be Tango Hanto in Kyoto (Tenki Tenki Tango!!!!): you could probably do that as an extension of the Hokuriku chapter. After the Kanazawa bit, you hop another train down the Sea of Japan coast to say, Maizuru or Miyazu, rent another car and spend a day or two driving around the Tango Peninsula. Here We are running into the problem that Russell and Wagyl mentioned above, namely that I haven't been there in 6 years, and a lot of the rather fancy rural camping sites and facilities may have been closed or rundown. Info on Da Webz is sparse and sketchy, even in Japanese, so it makes planning difficult.
As a general comment, none of these otherwise laudable facilities were ever intended as a genuine public service for the enjoyment of Outsiders: they were devised and run as traps to get Dem Cursed City Folk to drop their hard earned wages in the respective villages. And they failed, and now we have the haunted remnants to remind us that the very idea of Public in Japan is very weird. They were always little more than a rural concrete/construction lobby boondoggle sold as local tourism development initiatives, and once the weight of the maintenance budgets fell on the local authorities they lost interest and let them go to seed. Some sites might be useable, but even at ones that are you will draw funny looks if not outright resentment from the locals, many of whom either run a B&B or are related to somebody that does.
I would also recommend dropping this fixation on a Kei car. Any enjoyable drive will be made that much more enjoyable in a car that is a car, not a toy designed for toilet paper runs and picking up grandma from the enema clinic. Keis are the frilly pink panties of automobiles. The gas savings will be minimal unless you start driving cross country, for which you don't have the budget anyways.
At any rate, belatedly, I join the others in wishing you well and a great trip. Now, one thing: has anybody mentioned yet that it is going to be HOTTTTTttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt????
alright, over to you
). Anything that is drivable and has folding back seats to allow me to sleep if needed would be awesome, and I'm hoping borrowing a car will work out. Another idea, I found a bunch of websites with host families who let you stay for the night, get a shower, have some food, etc., for like $20. Anyone have experience with these? Seems like a great deal and a good chance to meet some random nihonjin around the country, which is a huge bonus. I got seriously drunk at a bar called Kamiya on some bullshit called デンキプラム with a 70 year-old random Japanese dude, and those kind of happenings can't be planned!
. In any case, I'd of course bring the car back cleaned and washed inside and out and with a full tank. If possible, I would like to borrow the car for about a week, and would likely use it to go from Tokyo to the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture and back, which is something like 1,600km. I'd also be happy to pay for an oil change since I would be adding on kilometers!
