12 November 2019
Hot and very windy
From Yamagata to Koriyama on the Shinkansen
Now I am in Koriyama. My last new stop on this trip. After here I will go back to Tokyo. It is about 20 degrees but blowing a gale forced wind. It better stop soon so I dont get blown off a mountain!
Getting here involved getting a train pass, getting a ticket, and getting the slowest Shinkansen in the world.
Getting an East Tohoku pass has been the biggest challenge of my trip so far, the office in Yamagata was closed Sunday and Monday, today it opened at 10AM. I was first in line.
By the time they opened there were 20 people in line, so I was glad I lined up 15 minutes early.
The process took 45 minutes! I thought the other people in the line would be angry at the stupid foreigner for taking so long, with all the photocopies and stamps and numerous bits of paper that I have never had to fill out before, so that they can be copied, stamped, laminated and filed. But no, I looked around at the other people seated at the other 3 counters, and they were taking just as long as me. Hopeless. Eventually my credit card was returned to me along with 3 receipts and my pass laminated on an A4 corrugated piece of cardboard.
Now for a couple of train reservations. Usually this take seconds, I write it all down, station from, station to, time, train number, date, day of week. Today that took another 20 minutes. The counter staff had to go line up at the one ticket machine and take turns to issue tickets to everyone. Very weird.
Then it was time for the half Shinkansen. It splits in half at Fukushima, I am north of Fukushima so I only had half a train. It was a very nice Shinkansen, but because it shares the tracks with the normal trains, it goes as fast as normal trains. You do however get a good view.
Now that I am in Koriyama, I have a huge hotel room, there are lots of places to eat, but later on tonight I will probably take ANOTHER SHINKANSEN 10 minutes up the tracks to Fukushima, as I can go anywhere for 'free' today as I am using the pass that took me so long to get.
Somehow I took a lot of very ordinary photos today. Here is the early morning streets of Yamagata on my way for breakfast.
Starbucks is the only thing open as always. Every school kid in the world is in here, being an absolute asshole. Bro hugs all round!
The outside of the half of a Shinkansen.
The inside seemed very new. Only 4 abreast seating, very comfortable.
Now for some views from a moving train. The weather changed 3 times on my 200km journey.
Nice mountain, window reflections. There were bigger mountains on the other side, but the sun was on that side so the blinds had been shut.
I think this very flat looking city is called Akayu.
Here is the view just out of Fukushima station, towards the mountains I would like to climb tomorrow. They are in cloud right now. Actually as I type this in the late afternoon the sky is blue all around and it seems as though the very strong wind has stopped.
This building houses a giant suspicious orb.
Thats a lot of train tracks, and the orb building again. Beware the orb.
Shrine number 1 of 2 in Koriyama.
The streets here are not dead straight. A nice change.
Shrine number 2 of 2 in Koriyama.
Another bendy street. Looks mostly shut, but also looks like mostly restaurants that shut in the afternoon between lunch and dinner. Maybe. Maybe its just shut.
I was too early as ever, so I did a few laps of the Yodobashi. Japan still sells discmans. I had one once, advertised as a mobile cd player. If you even looked at it funny it would skip. Useless.
In Japan you can still try out in ear headphone / earbud things. Wax trading.
Behold the view out my hotel window. The window opens. It was damn hot in here.
A huge room, which even has a small table occupying the otherwise small amount of spare room available.
The nazi owner of APA is now up to volume 5 of his Theoretical modern history series. Volume 5 is very praising of Donald Trump. However my room is missing Volume 2. This is unacceptable! How will I properly understand that I am genetically inferior to pure bred Japanese type o negative blood type people?