Good-bye Yotsukaido!
Here I am in Tomioka! I took the JR train, and then the shinkansen, and then another dinky little train from Takasaki to Tomioka.
It’s pouring outside, and I don’t have my aparment yet! I’m staying with another teacher in her apartment, which is, incidentally, next-door to mine. I’ll move in tomorrow, AND start my new job!
While not as thrilling as I’d hoped, the shinkansen ride was nonetheless scenic, as my city-to-countryside video attests. It was weird coming from the center of Tokyo to the middle of nowhere, but there you are.
I was quite charmed by the quaint little station for my train from Takasaki to Tomioka. The train looked to be from the 1950′s, and it had only four cars (for comparison, I’ve never seen a Japanese train with fewer than 10 or so). At each stop, only the doors at the front of the train would open, so I had to move to another car to get off. There are no turnstiles, so you give your ticket (which is hand-stamped when you buy it) to the conductor when you get off the train.
Ye olde Tomioka train.
Awesome.
