OSAKA -- A 31-year-old Japanese man who has gone around the world by bicycle has begun a series of lectures at junior high schools to tell students about his experiences in the 43 countries he visited.

Passionate about seeing the world with his own eyes, Tatsu Sakamoto, of Higashi-Osaka, embarked on his trip from London in 1995 and arrived back in Japan in December.

His employer, Miki Shoko Co., granted him paid leave for four years and three months to make the trip.

Sakamoto rode his bicycle on the roads of 43 countries, in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South America. He covered a distance of some 55,000 km, spending nights in cheap hotels or camping.

During his trip, which cost about 10 million yen, he returned to Japan only once, to change his bicycle.

In his speech at Kodomo-no-Mura Gakuen, a private junior high school in Wakayama Prefecture, Sakamoto said: "If you think you cannot do something, then you really can't. Go ahead and do the things you truly want to do. You have to maximize your potential as an individual."

He told the students that the best thing he gained from his trip was a "feeling of gratitude."

Sakamoto cited his stopover in a town in Guinea that had no electricity.

While he as there, he was taken ill with malaria and dysentery. The town's residents took great care of him, he said, supplying him with all the care and medicine he needed.

"They did not care about things such as wealth or poverty. They are just people who are proud of who they are," he said, adding that he realized how he was "healed" by them.

Miki Shoko is the planning and sales division of the Miki House group, whose international headquarters is in Osaka. The group specializes in children's clothing.