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Photopost: Prefectures #44 and #45 -- Kagoshima and Kumamoto, aka BEST TRAIN NERD DAY EVER
This was inadvertantly the best train adventure that I've had yet. LOTS of pictures in this post. Should I cut it?
The morning started off early in Miyazaki, where I think we encountered the worst Toyoko breakfast ever. No bread and no juice, just miso soup and nigiri and some weird sausage and eggs and whatnot.
Funny thing: apparently the "face tracker" on my camera saw these three faces but didn't see mine.
Miyazaki 846 -> 1032 Hayato
Hayato 1033 -> 1056 Kareigawa
This was actually a mistake. I had originally thought we'd get to Hayato at 1042, so had us planned to take a train an hour later. But the train was there and waiting at 1032 so we figured, what the heck, and got on it. Kareigawa was basically my entire excuse for going this particular route in the first place.
Kareigawa is a station that opened on January 15, 1903... and the station is still the exact same station building that was used back then, so being there is essentially being in a Meiji-era train station, completely made out of wood and situated in the middle of nowhere. It's very peaceful... except for the fact that it's well-known as a historical tourist train station. So when we arrived there were like 30 people standing around waiting for our train to come in, not to ride it, but to take photos. Then they all got on a bus and left.
In the hour we were there I'd say no less than 20 people came by. Nobody except us rode the trains to/from there, mind you -- they all came in cars -- which is why the station has a "ridership" of 30 people per day -- but a lot of people did come in to take photos and/or use the bathroom and whatever. One family from Osaka stopped in and chatted with me for a bit, they were just seeing the station on their way to the nearby Kagoshima airport.
Benoit went off hiking in the nearby park and woods, and I spent the hour just relishing in the station. There was also a "museum" of sorts with various old artifacts from the station, and photographs and whatnot. I found the "eki note" books and added my own note (in Japanese) saying that I was an American tetsudou coming there for the first time and thought it was amazing. I mean, the times when I was just alone there with nature and with the wooden station, it was really nice. It's a little hard to explain.
At noon, the Hayato-no-Kaze tourist train came by for a few minutes and it was the neatest thing ever! The inside and outside are made to look like old-fashioned trains, and they run on this really old train ride through the countryside. It was my introduction to tourist trains, which made our later trip even more amazing...
Kareigawa station. It turns 107 years old next week.
Pretending to be a ticket-taker.
Pretending to be a station master. (This station probably hasn't been staffed SINCE the Meiji era.)
In front of the Hayato no Kaze train.
I'm a telegraph operator!!
Super-old sign hiding under one of the picture galleries.
So yeah, sadly, we did have to leave eventually. There really is NOTHING near the station at all, not even a place to get crappy lunch food like a convenience store -- just a vending machine with drinks a block away. There is also a "kareigawa ekimae park", but it's basically a swingset and some benches.
Kareigawa 1215 -> 1257 Yoshimatsu
I intended to get to Yoshimatsu at 1403 and leave at 1449, but instead we had nearly two hours there. Yikes.
There is nothing in Yoshimatsu either, really. The main drag outside the station has a few stores but none of them seemed to be open at 1pm on a weekday.
BUT.
There IS a tiny train museum there, AND there is a steam locomotive parked outside the station that you can go play on!!!!!
Here I am being a big dork with the tourist train posing board.
In the mini-train museum playing with a signal light.
In the steam train!!!! They have a sign saying something like "Feel free to sit in the chair and take photos -- but be careful... remember that this once was very dangerous machinery..."
Benoit and I both tried doing this, climbing on the train itself, but he looks a lot cooler doing it than I did (my hands were cold and I was scared)
100th anniversary of the Hisatsu line completion sign. (From last fall, I think.)
These are not trains. These are the meanest stray cats I've ever seen in Japan. But Benoit insisted on taking photos of them. They were outside a place with a sign on it saying it was a cafe, but completely didn't look like a restaurant at all. Hmm.
Yeah, so we wandered around for a while until it started lightly raining, and then we went into a little store/cafe by the station that sold local goods and train goods and also made some food. After a bunch of discussion with the guy running the place, we determined that Benoit could eat wakame udon, so he had that, and I had oyakodon. We sat indoors eating for a while and went back out around 20-ish minutes before the next leg of the trip.
Much to my surprise, our next trip was on a tourist train!!!!!! It was the Shinpei tourist train, which goes from Yoshimatsu to Hitoyoshi. There are a whole bunch of switchbacks and loops and all this crazy shit on that leg. (You can see some of their Wikipedia entries here.) The train was reserved seating, but we could sit on one of the two benches in front as unreserved, so we did that. There was a lady who served as a tour guide of sorts, telling us when to look left or right to see neat mountains, or explaining when we were going on switchbacks, or whatever. Also, the three stations on this leg, we stopped there for several minutes each and she lent us hats and stuff to take photos with. Wheeee!
First station: Masaki. This is our tourguide lady.
There's a bell of happiness here on the platform that I rang too. Then we went through a big switchback and some tunnels.
The train randomly stopped at a point on a hill... where this sign has specifically been placed so that the train can stop and people can look at the mountains. I took this photo out the window from the train. This is also when I met my train buddy for the afternoon, Hiroshima Guy, another train nerd who was very funny and friendly. He'd opened the windows to take photos and so we got to talking while looking out.
Yatake Station is up in the mountains and it HAS ANOTHER STEAM TRAIN!!! Pretty neat.
Another random stop on a hill. This one explains how the track loops and switches back in order to get to Okoba station. You can kinda-sorta see the track in the distance, even.
Station house at Okoba. It's full of business cards for some reason.
Here's my photo for this station. Look, I'm holding a different train date thingy.
Just sitting on the train itself.
This was a really really neat experience -- basically being on a train where, for once, EVERYONE is there to look at the scenery and run around taking photos like big train dorks! I really enjoyed riding it, taking photos, etc. I even bought a cellphone strap (there are some goods you can ONLY buy on these tourist trains) and got the train stamp as well as the station stamps (once we got to Hitoyoshi they were all there).
Hiroshima Guy (named such because he's from Hiroshima but seriously rented a car and drove to Kagoshima in order to take trains all the way back home -- how awesome is that??) ended up sitting in the bench next to ours on the train going to Yatsushiro, so he advised us when to sit on which side of the train so we'd get a better view of the Kumogawa river. Benoit enjoyed it, but I actually thought I'd lost my train pass for a bit and spent a while searching my bags for it. Oops :( By the time I found my pass it was sunset, so I just napped for a bit instead.
Sadly, we lost Hiroshima Guy at Yatsushiro as he was taking trains back to Hakata and then a night bus home. He was really cool though. I'd been telling Benoit that I often end up chatting with someone for one or two legs of a journey at a time on these local train trips, so this was kind of cool.
Nothing much happened on the rest of the trip. I saw this station on the way and it reminded me of my brother:
Hitoyoshi 1623 -> 1735 Yatsushiro
Yatsushiro 1749 -> 1824 Kumamoto
Kumamoto was the end of the line for today. Well, kind of. It turns out the hotel and the station are nowhere near the castle or the main shopping part of town, so we took a tram to Karashimacho and wandered through the covered shopping arcades there.
I'd looked up some stuff online before going, and we wanted to keep an eye out for a place called Plaza Del Sol, a supposedly really good Mexican restaurant with actual Mexicans working there. It turned out to be one of those lovely hole-in-the-wall basement restaurants that did, infact, have really good food. I had a burrito and a taco and some chips and stuff and it was really very good, especially for Japan. Benoit was able to get vegetarian stuff too, which was also part of the point of going there.
So, success. We glimpsed the castle on our way home from the tram, and will be going there tomorrow morning.
This is how we found the Mexican place.
Tomorrow won't be so big a deal for trains, most likely, but we're going to see a castle and a Christina. Hopefully we'll also get to see Saga Kita HS, but it depends on timing.
I was a big idiot and wasted time when coming back here rather than going directly to sleep, so I really ought to do that now :(
The morning started off early in Miyazaki, where I think we encountered the worst Toyoko breakfast ever. No bread and no juice, just miso soup and nigiri and some weird sausage and eggs and whatnot.
Funny thing: apparently the "face tracker" on my camera saw these three faces but didn't see mine.
Miyazaki 846 -> 1032 Hayato
Hayato 1033 -> 1056 Kareigawa
This was actually a mistake. I had originally thought we'd get to Hayato at 1042, so had us planned to take a train an hour later. But the train was there and waiting at 1032 so we figured, what the heck, and got on it. Kareigawa was basically my entire excuse for going this particular route in the first place.
Kareigawa is a station that opened on January 15, 1903... and the station is still the exact same station building that was used back then, so being there is essentially being in a Meiji-era train station, completely made out of wood and situated in the middle of nowhere. It's very peaceful... except for the fact that it's well-known as a historical tourist train station. So when we arrived there were like 30 people standing around waiting for our train to come in, not to ride it, but to take photos. Then they all got on a bus and left.
In the hour we were there I'd say no less than 20 people came by. Nobody except us rode the trains to/from there, mind you -- they all came in cars -- which is why the station has a "ridership" of 30 people per day -- but a lot of people did come in to take photos and/or use the bathroom and whatever. One family from Osaka stopped in and chatted with me for a bit, they were just seeing the station on their way to the nearby Kagoshima airport.
Benoit went off hiking in the nearby park and woods, and I spent the hour just relishing in the station. There was also a "museum" of sorts with various old artifacts from the station, and photographs and whatnot. I found the "eki note" books and added my own note (in Japanese) saying that I was an American tetsudou coming there for the first time and thought it was amazing. I mean, the times when I was just alone there with nature and with the wooden station, it was really nice. It's a little hard to explain.
At noon, the Hayato-no-Kaze tourist train came by for a few minutes and it was the neatest thing ever! The inside and outside are made to look like old-fashioned trains, and they run on this really old train ride through the countryside. It was my introduction to tourist trains, which made our later trip even more amazing...
Kareigawa station. It turns 107 years old next week.
Pretending to be a ticket-taker.
Pretending to be a station master. (This station probably hasn't been staffed SINCE the Meiji era.)
In front of the Hayato no Kaze train.
I'm a telegraph operator!!
Super-old sign hiding under one of the picture galleries.
So yeah, sadly, we did have to leave eventually. There really is NOTHING near the station at all, not even a place to get crappy lunch food like a convenience store -- just a vending machine with drinks a block away. There is also a "kareigawa ekimae park", but it's basically a swingset and some benches.
Kareigawa 1215 -> 1257 Yoshimatsu
I intended to get to Yoshimatsu at 1403 and leave at 1449, but instead we had nearly two hours there. Yikes.
There is nothing in Yoshimatsu either, really. The main drag outside the station has a few stores but none of them seemed to be open at 1pm on a weekday.
BUT.
There IS a tiny train museum there, AND there is a steam locomotive parked outside the station that you can go play on!!!!!
Here I am being a big dork with the tourist train posing board.
In the mini-train museum playing with a signal light.
In the steam train!!!! They have a sign saying something like "Feel free to sit in the chair and take photos -- but be careful... remember that this once was very dangerous machinery..."
Benoit and I both tried doing this, climbing on the train itself, but he looks a lot cooler doing it than I did (my hands were cold and I was scared)
100th anniversary of the Hisatsu line completion sign. (From last fall, I think.)
These are not trains. These are the meanest stray cats I've ever seen in Japan. But Benoit insisted on taking photos of them. They were outside a place with a sign on it saying it was a cafe, but completely didn't look like a restaurant at all. Hmm.
Yeah, so we wandered around for a while until it started lightly raining, and then we went into a little store/cafe by the station that sold local goods and train goods and also made some food. After a bunch of discussion with the guy running the place, we determined that Benoit could eat wakame udon, so he had that, and I had oyakodon. We sat indoors eating for a while and went back out around 20-ish minutes before the next leg of the trip.
Much to my surprise, our next trip was on a tourist train!!!!!! It was the Shinpei tourist train, which goes from Yoshimatsu to Hitoyoshi. There are a whole bunch of switchbacks and loops and all this crazy shit on that leg. (You can see some of their Wikipedia entries here.) The train was reserved seating, but we could sit on one of the two benches in front as unreserved, so we did that. There was a lady who served as a tour guide of sorts, telling us when to look left or right to see neat mountains, or explaining when we were going on switchbacks, or whatever. Also, the three stations on this leg, we stopped there for several minutes each and she lent us hats and stuff to take photos with. Wheeee!
First station: Masaki. This is our tourguide lady.
There's a bell of happiness here on the platform that I rang too. Then we went through a big switchback and some tunnels.
The train randomly stopped at a point on a hill... where this sign has specifically been placed so that the train can stop and people can look at the mountains. I took this photo out the window from the train. This is also when I met my train buddy for the afternoon, Hiroshima Guy, another train nerd who was very funny and friendly. He'd opened the windows to take photos and so we got to talking while looking out.
Yatake Station is up in the mountains and it HAS ANOTHER STEAM TRAIN!!! Pretty neat.
Another random stop on a hill. This one explains how the track loops and switches back in order to get to Okoba station. You can kinda-sorta see the track in the distance, even.
Station house at Okoba. It's full of business cards for some reason.
Here's my photo for this station. Look, I'm holding a different train date thingy.
Just sitting on the train itself.
This was a really really neat experience -- basically being on a train where, for once, EVERYONE is there to look at the scenery and run around taking photos like big train dorks! I really enjoyed riding it, taking photos, etc. I even bought a cellphone strap (there are some goods you can ONLY buy on these tourist trains) and got the train stamp as well as the station stamps (once we got to Hitoyoshi they were all there).
Hiroshima Guy (named such because he's from Hiroshima but seriously rented a car and drove to Kagoshima in order to take trains all the way back home -- how awesome is that??) ended up sitting in the bench next to ours on the train going to Yatsushiro, so he advised us when to sit on which side of the train so we'd get a better view of the Kumogawa river. Benoit enjoyed it, but I actually thought I'd lost my train pass for a bit and spent a while searching my bags for it. Oops :( By the time I found my pass it was sunset, so I just napped for a bit instead.
Sadly, we lost Hiroshima Guy at Yatsushiro as he was taking trains back to Hakata and then a night bus home. He was really cool though. I'd been telling Benoit that I often end up chatting with someone for one or two legs of a journey at a time on these local train trips, so this was kind of cool.
Nothing much happened on the rest of the trip. I saw this station on the way and it reminded me of my brother:
Hitoyoshi 1623 -> 1735 Yatsushiro
Yatsushiro 1749 -> 1824 Kumamoto
Kumamoto was the end of the line for today. Well, kind of. It turns out the hotel and the station are nowhere near the castle or the main shopping part of town, so we took a tram to Karashimacho and wandered through the covered shopping arcades there.
I'd looked up some stuff online before going, and we wanted to keep an eye out for a place called Plaza Del Sol, a supposedly really good Mexican restaurant with actual Mexicans working there. It turned out to be one of those lovely hole-in-the-wall basement restaurants that did, infact, have really good food. I had a burrito and a taco and some chips and stuff and it was really very good, especially for Japan. Benoit was able to get vegetarian stuff too, which was also part of the point of going there.
So, success. We glimpsed the castle on our way home from the tram, and will be going there tomorrow morning.
This is how we found the Mexican place.
Tomorrow won't be so big a deal for trains, most likely, but we're going to see a castle and a Christina. Hopefully we'll also get to see Saga Kita HS, but it depends on timing.
I was a big idiot and wasted time when coming back here rather than going directly to sleep, so I really ought to do that now :(
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