A 10-Hour Train Ride Across Japan

A 10-Hour Train Ride Across Japan

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In early September, I traveled across Japan for a weekend in Niigata to experience the Echigo Tsumari Art Festival. For this long journey, I decided to use one of the final days of my summer Seishun 18 Kippu to take local trains from Niigata to Shizuoka. The route took me through the mountainous regions of Japan, passing through Gunma, Saitama, Tokyo, and Kanagawa Prefectures before reaching my home in Shizuoka. In total, the train ride was approximately 10 hours. This journey allowed me to see parts of Japan I thought I never would, granting a special solo experience filled with reflection and gratitude.

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I had taken the Shinkansen to Niigata on Friday night, making it difficult to see much of anything out the windows as we whizzed by unfamiliar areas. Saturday was spent in the fields near Matsudai and Tokamachi at the art festival. And on Sunday, I left Niigata relatively early (7:30 am) to begin my adventure home.

The journey took me through curvy train tracks in between lush mountains and beautiful green forests. I saw miles of rice fields starting to turn golden for the autumn harvest. The mist gathered around the mountain tops was dreamy and serene. It felt as if I were floating through a fairytale while I was on the train passing through Gunma and Saitama Prefectures with the breathtaking landscape filling the train windows. I felt so at peace and relaxed while riding through these magical rural regions, and I wouldn’t exchange those six hours of the trip for anything…

View from the train. This was somewhere in Gunma Prefecture.
Gray skies and green rice fields.
Pretty train tracks lining the platform at a station in the countryside.
Mountains surrounding the train station area. This was taken from a small overpass that connected opposite platforms.

From Tokyo, my journey home was more familiar, easier, and a couple hours shorter. The number of times I’ve taken local lines in and out of Tokyo has surpassed what I can count on my hands, so this leg of the train ride was a bit monotonous. Although an incredibly long day traveling from one side of the country to the other, it was something I will never forget and probably the best decision I have made while traveling in Japan.

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