Well, my trip to Itoigawa yesterday (now two days ago) mostly went very well. I had to wake up rather early to catch the train to get there since Niigata is about 2hrs 20min away by train. The scenery was spectacular running through deep valleys and along the coast and I had an enjoyable trip. I got into Itoigawa at 10:30 or so and it is such a small town that I wasted a bit of time just trying to find a convenience store to buy lunch in. I eventually found a supermarket and picked up some somen, inari sushi and a drink. I then walked back to the station and simply caught a taxi to the Fossa Magna museum. It was expensive for such a short trip, but it was uphill and I knew I'd have to head down that same hill later, plus walk around the geopark, so the price seemed worth it. The fossa magna museum was fun to look at for me since it was very focused on the local jadeite which is what I research. I took tons of pictures and noted how to recognize the jadeite when it was unworked. In the gift shop I bought a small piece of the local jade for XRF testing (which will hopefully match other Itoigawa jadeite samples I've tested), and some local books on jadeite as well. I then ate my lunch, and found my way five minutes down the road to the Chojagahara Archaeological Museum. They showed a great little film in Japanese that was easy for me to follow, and then one of the volunteers whose English was pretty abysmal, gave me what was essentially a tour in Japanese. The museum is mostly focused on the Jomon period which is thousands of years before the time period I study but it was interesting to see what they were speculating about (bamboo drills), and there was a small amount of Kofun period excavation done by that particular town. I then asked them for any site reports they had from Kofun period excavations. I copied them by way of my digital camera since none were for sale and it's unlikely that I'll be able to get them through interlibrary loan (I have not had much luck for books in Korea or Japan that way). They then handed me a really fun laser pen audio guide system which told me about the nearby Jomon site. It was actually pretty uninformative, but I liked using it and the Jomon site was quite fascinating. They really reconstructed the houses well and it was cool to go inside various examples of Jomon period houses. I then headed back to the museum to return the audio guide and got hijacked into having a cup of iced tea with them because I looked too hot. They advised me there was no way I could get to the good beach for jadeite hunting so I should head for the other beach in Itoigawa. I walked down the hill (which was a rather meandering path), and finally reached the station. I followed their directions to the beach, but realized it was a good kilometer or two away and my feet were already killing me, plus I'd miss the next train out of there, so I gave up and decided to be satisfied with my already bought jadeite sample.

I had arranged it so that I went about an hour out of my way to go to a famous onsen town, Ichiroyuzawa. I got there a few minutes before six and asked at the tourist info for them to recommend me a good close onsen because I had until either 7:01 or 7:30 when the shinkansen towards niigata came through. They recommended one less than a block away which was pretty expensive even with a coupon they handed me, plus they charged me 300yen for a towel which is ridiculous. I was annoyed to go through and discover that it wasn't even that nice of an onsen. It was empty for sure, and looked very traditional in that it had two hot baths in the centre of the room surrounded by the shower areas. There was a dry sauna, and a copper tub filled with cold water. No outside bath, no jets. For that price, it was a rip off, but there was little I could do about it at that point. I washed, soaked, tried the sauna but it was too hot, soaked again, then decided that I still had time to hit another onsen if I hurried and there had been ones surrounding the one I was at. I left, but was very much thwarted. See, apparently mountain onsen towns in the middle of the Japanese alps, for some inexplicable reason, close down their public onsen at 6pm. I had no luck finding one that was open, so I was forced to just buy a bento and hop on the shin to Niigata. The bento was one of those neat ones that heats up when you pull a string on the bottom, so I had a nice dinner of marinated beef strips, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots over rice. We got to Niigata about 50 min later and I walked the 5 min walk to my hotel. I had to get some work done on my fulbright application so I did that while eating some leftover strawberry covered chocolate thingies. I went to bed a half hour early because I knew I would have to wake up insanely early today.

I woke up at 5am today to catch the 6:05am shinkansen to Tokyo. I had to be strategic about it because there is very little room to store luggage on shinakansen (weird, right?) so you have to get a seat in the back of the car where there's room to place the luggage. The seating was unassigned so I made sure to get there early enough to claim that space. Once in the station I bought an onigiri and some melon bread for breakfast. I ate those as soon as the train got moving, then brushed my teeth. After that, I put on a facemask and one earplug then pushed my seat all the way back (shinkansen seats go way back), and actually went to sleep. I'm not sure how long I slept but I was woken up when one lady sat down next to me, pushed the seat back, thus removing the side of the seat which I was using as a pillow. She then had the nerve to ask if I was alright. I needed to get up within ten minutes or so anyway since it gave me time to go to the bathroom before the train arrived at Tokyo station. I have since switched to a shinkansen to Kyoto and will be in Nara by lunch. Someone should tell Japanese Railway that the Koreans have free internet on their bullet trains, and they should really get on that... Ja ne!
Tags:
.

Most Popular Tags

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags