I was not nice, so I fucked off.
The valley snaked southwest and I walked alone. The deathly gloom of inner Tokushima receded with every curve in the road and the land was thinly dotted with people now. I walked across along the oxbow lakes of villages bypassed by the new highway, across low mountain passes fading rapidly into the endless cedar forest, under plums blooming in shades of pink and purple and Miura green, into a diamond sun which lit up the valley with a cold, brilliant glow, and I slept in a warehouse next to empty crates of fruit.