Andrew Zhao

A Local Festival#

We left the hotel early and took a taxi to Toneri Park to catch the senbonzakura festival.

There were sakura trees everywhere, with a variety of colors, as well as other flowers growing in neat beds.

All of the trees were quite pretty, and the variety made for a really nice viewing experience

The park had a truly local feeling, since it was packed, lively, but with pretty much no tourists around besides us.

We did a full leisurely loop around the park, took a bunch of pictures, and even paused to watch a YouTuber doing magic tricks in the plaza.

We ended up spending over an hour at the park just doing those things!

There were a couple of statues nearby too that turned out to be not statues, which I have seen before but this time I got tricked into thinking they were real. We caught the train back to Ueno, which was super crowded since it was a weekend and nearly peak cherry blossom season. We decided to check out Ueno Park since we had a little bit of time to spare. In my opinion, it wasn’t as nice as Toneri Park, since it was way more crowded and the trees felt a bit lacking in comparison, so I’m not sure if it was really worth it. We went back into the train station, and picked up some bento boxes to eat on the train before taking the Shinkansen to Sakudaira.

A Brief Respite in Sakudaira#

Once we reached Sakudaira we had to exit the station to transfer to the High Rail. We had given ourselves a large buffer, so we actually had some time to wander around the town a bit too. It was pretty quiet, with very few people out and about which was a big contrast with Ueno where we had just come from.

We returned to the station and admired the elevated views that let us see the nearby mountains, which contrasted heavily with the buildings around us. We went up to the platform to catch the High Rail 1375 — or so we thought. It turns out you need to pick up a physical ticket from the ticket machine using your reservation, so the attendant on the train wouldn’t let us onto the train. I wasn’t able to communicate that so I only learned that after the train came and went, and I think the attendant had assumed we were boarding a local train instead and sent us to wait for the next train. I was actually pretty frustrated with myself here, from a combination of not being able to communicate, and not having researched a little more to see we needed physical tickets (especially now that this was the 2nd time we weren’t able to board a fun train).

But in the end we were standing on the platform lost and confused, having watched the only High Rail train depart without us, and so we had to come up with a plan otherwise we would have basically wasted the whole day. We wanted to try and catch the return trip of the High Rail later that night anyways since that’s when we would be trying to do some stargazing, so we went back to the machine to print our physical tickets for the ride back, and then hopped on the next local train to Kobuchizawa.

Making Our Own Fun Train#

The local train turned out to be really quiet and surprisingly nice. There was pretty much no one else in our car, so we were able to freely swap seats to take in both sides of the carriage. We saw wide mountain ranges, villages nestled in valleys, and a river carving its way back and forth across the landscape.

I definitely felt a sense of awe, and even nostalgia since a lot of the views reminded me of Oregon where I grew up. I think I’d like to live an area like that but also I’m not sure if that’s really true since not having the convenience of stores and such would be a huge pain.

Dinner in Kobuchizawa#

In Kobuchizawa, Friend J was looking for a place to eat, and found a small restaurant that specializes in grilled aged eel served in handcrafted bamboo boxes. When we walked in, I initially misunderstood what they were asking me, which was if we had a reservation. But fortunately the staff were warm and helpful, handing us an English menu and confirming we’d have time to finish before our 7 PM train when we asked about it. I’m not sure if they prioritized us, but they made sure that we would be okay. After ordering, they even offered to move us to a window seat that had opened up, which had a view of the garden out back. The garden was beautifully constructed, with natural looking formations of rocks and plants, forming a pool that had koi fish swimming around.

They even brought us hand written instructions translated to English on a sticky note, that they placed over the Japanese printout so that we could see how to eat the meal properly. They also added a note explaning that to pay we just needed to go up to the front of the restaurant. It was overall amazing service, and the staff were super friendly and accomodating! The food itself was really good too, the eel was so soft and fluffy, while also packed with umami.

A Guided Tour of the Stars#

We walked back to the station, and this time we were fully ready to board the fun train. We had our physical tickets, and were able to board this time. Unfortunately the weather forecast said that it was going to be too cloudy to actually see the stars, so they gave us viewing tickets for later since they had a video to play in that scenario. We had one of the duo seats facing the window, which was really cool since it gave us some spacing away from other people and let us easily see out the window. Or it would have if the lights were off, but instead we were basically just staring at a reflection of ourselves. I figured they would turn off the lights later, and didn’t think much of it at the time.

An older gentleman introduced himself as the tour guide, and he spent the first half of the train ride explaining various astronomy related things. Unfortunately, we didn’t really understand any of it other than the occasional word like hoshi, aozora, and mangekyou. We had pamphlets too, which talked about the observatory on top of the mountain and how it contributes to research.

When the train stopped about half way for the video showing, however we saw many of the passengers disembarking for some reason. We weren’t sure what was happening, but we followed, and it turns out the clouds had actually cleared up a little bit so we would actually be able to see the stars. We walked a ways away from the station where the lights were off, and looked up to the sky. It wasn’t the most amazing view, but we were able to see a decent number of stars, and I was even able to capture some with my phone. I hadn’t expected it to be so cold though, and I ruefully reminisced about how cold I’d been on Tashirojima, as I was once again freezing despite having been somewhat prepared this time. Even with the best I brought, I was freezing in the 30F weather.

Our tour guide explained the stars and constellations in Japanese, but again we didn’t catch much and instead mostly just looked around while trying not to freeze. Many of the passengers trickled back, and by the time the stop was over there were only a few of us still standing outside. We were probably outside for maybe 30-45 minutes, and before boarding again, we got some pictures of the train and the station itself.

Back on the train there was a dome at the front projecting constellations and a small library of books about the stars. Apparently the stop was our tour guide’s last stop, since he didn’t get back on the train, and the rest of the train ride was fairly uneventful but peaceful.

I was really hoping they’d turn off the lights so that we could see the stars from the train, however I guess that wasn’t going to be the case as they were kept on the entire ride back.

Late return#

We got back to our station, and we were basically the only people there as it was pretty late at night. Fortunately there was a heated station lounge to keep us warm, since it was still a bit chilly. We were messing around and just having some good old fashioned fun, switching between chairs, since Friend J kept get shocked by them, and I couldn’t replicate it no matter how much I tried. We got on the Shinkansen and had no issues returning fortunately, and got back to Tokyo around 11:30 PM.

Thoughts#

Day 12 was honestly kind of wild thinking about it, since there was a nonzero chance we could’ve gotten stuck in the middle of nowhere. Although I felt pretty frustrated with myself for messing up the tickets, it honestly worked out better in hindsight since we had more fun hopping around the seats and being able to see both sides of the train. The fun train itself was actually a little disappointing, but it was still a cool experience that was worth trying in my opinion! It was kind of nice just being able to chill and have fun!

Day 12 Travel Numbers#

7 hours and ¥13,300 yen covered by JR Pass

0.25 hours and ¥340 yen not covered by JR Pass

JR Pass Value after Day 12#

Cost saved: ¥128,040

Time Travelled: ~37.5 hr

Not covered by JR Pass#

Cost: ¥5,890

Total Transportation Time#

Time Travelled: ~40 hr