WHAT a wonderful book. The premise is this: Ferguson, a thirtysomething Canadian who has worked in Japan for five years, will travel the length of the country, from Cape Sata in the south to Cape Soya, following the spring tide of the Cherry Blossom Front (Sakura Zensen) as it sweeps north, and hitching lifts in a land where hitching is not done (everyone who stops for him tells him Japanese people do not stop for hitchhikers). Along the way Ferguson provides an immensely entertaining insight into the land and its people from the perspective of a gaijin (foreigner) who has learned the language but who has also learned, the hard way, that, for the Japanese, a gaijin is ever a gaijin, never to be an insider. Ferguson's easy style ranks with the best of Bill Bryson. Like Bryson, he is often at his best (and laugh-out-loud funniest) when most annoyed, but he is fundamentally sympathetic and his tale, at one point, may even move you to tears.