Saturday, 8 November 2025

Today was a transition day as I moved from the Oirase Gorge to Matsumoto. It involved one (free hotel) coach, 2 Shinkansen and a Limited Express train. It was possibly more tiring than the hike but at least I don’t ache as much. A lot of the Shinkansen route is in tunnels so looking out the window can be pretty boring and the sun had set by the time I got on the Limited Express so no photography there.

Anyway here’s some photos from the day. First off the lobby area as I passed it three times a day to get to the restaurant or the bar and at 7:30 am there weren’t people milling around.

I don’t know what the green stuff was about by the sign asked you to take your shoes off so it must have been some sensory thing.

Anyway onto breakfast. You had to book both breakfast and dinner and you did this via a web site that would send you a confirmation message that you were in a queue, and how long the queue was at at present, and eventually it would ask you to come to the venue. That didn’t mean you had a table ready for you only that they were predicting that they would by the time you got there, maybe. First dinner using this system was very confusing and I went down when it told me I was in the queue only to be told that it would tell me when I should come down so I hiked back to my room and sorted photos. I was then told to come to the venue and there was a queue of people waiting and it wasn’t my turn yet but I was closer so I hung around and after a few minutes indeed did get a table. There may have been more instructions in Japanese as one of the questions on the English confirmation web page asked in Japanese if this was your first time using the system. I didn’t translate that question since it was optional until booking #2 when it was probably moot. I was early for breakfast and late for dinner and that seemed to guarantee near immediate action. Scan the QR code, get the web form, complete it with email address, wait for confirmation email and click through to another web page to confirm and then click to watch the queue and see there were 0 parties in the queue. Shortly afterwards it changed to come to the venue and I put my hiking shoes back on and hiked to the venue and always got straight in (or close to it). It also seemed like there was a Gaijin corner to the restaurant since I was always seated in it (three times next to the window so it was fine but it was the part of the restaurant furthest from the actual buffet). Most of the other Gaijin were Chinese.

Here is the view from my table this morning.

Here’s a sneak peek at the buffet. Salad items are the first island and at the counter you could have got “French Toast”.

Today’s breakfast looked like this after I had eaten a croissant and some muesli (and this was my second juice and second cafe latte 🙂

The furthest away was probably the coffee closely followed by the miso soup.

Anyway breakfast one I took the opportunity to take a photo of the bar area in daylight. That chimney is still something else, and the view spectacular.

Also of interest (to me at least) is that there were rooms between the two wings and the two onsen, the shop, coin laundry, and the spa were also between the wings and so the corridor could make those rooms noisy but they had a cunning solution, a wall.

In the activity area there was a display of moss balls so maybe these are the ones that were rejected and placed outside.

And finally a shot of the entrance from outside. I think there was way more foliage on these trees when I arrived and yesterday’s wind may have not played nice with them.

I think I may have found a working example of the light post I saw yesterday in one of the towns on the way to the railway station.

Finally arrived at the very big Hachinohe railway station. While I had an hour or so until my train the station isn’t in the centre of town so I just hung out at the station. A couple of Shinkansen that don’t stop there blasted through which was impressive but no photos due to no warning.

Public art inside too.

The Shinkansen part of the station is cavernous (the regular part of the station is just open platforms). I was surprised that only one platform had barriers but it was the side the not stopping or slowing trains used.

At the appointed time my steed arrives and 9 cars pass me by since I’m travelling in Gran Class today and it’s at the end.

It goes through a lot of tunnels and that nose design is supposed to reduce the boom when it exits. I measured it doing a maximum of 327.8 km/h (just over 200 mph).

Gran class on the Tohoku Shinkansen has a steward and catering so this was lunch, I selected the Japanese option (there was a Western one too) and a beer. Later I had cake and a coffee because why not. I also had a bento for the Hokuriku Shinkansen as it’s not catered.

As the steward kept coming in an out of the area through the automatic door which was next to me in 1A I noticed her hack for getting the door open, and the one for making it stay open.

You can wave your hand near the hand sign or on the right hand side of the door you can just cover the sensor with a thumb. There is a switch at the top of the door opening on the left that makes it stay open should you need to stand in the opening.

A few photos along the way. Afternoon light was good for photos, 320 km/h not so good, tunnels even less so.

Along the way we had picked up a hitch-hiker, the Akita Shinkansen.

Nearly made it to the outskirts of Tokyo but got off at Omiya and got on the Hokuriku Shinkansen.

No catering so I had my bento.

When I got off I noticed this braille on the rail by the door. Google thinks it says that this car 12, there are 6 rows of seats, and that the single A is on the left as you come into the cabin.

After getting off this Shinkansen I had to transition to a limited express again and after the jammed tickets episode I thought I understood how things were supposed to work but I failed again. Insert both LE tickets and tap the Suica for the Shinkansen and the gate was having none of it and suggesting I seek assistance. With a short connection that’s what I did and I just got waved though to the correct platform to find my final train waiting. Confusingly there were people queued but not getting on it. I checked the board, checked the train, walked to the end, since my car was the end one again, checked again and got on. Announcement on the PA and the information panels confirmed it was my train so found my seat and collapsed into it.

Sadly for me this is one of JR Central’s trains with a massive panoramic window for the drivers compartment that you can see through from the passenger compartment. Sadly because (a) it was dark outside and (b) we were at the end of the train and do the seats were all oriented in the other direction.

Anyway here is a photo from the inside and one from the outside after I got off.

And finally I am back to normality for my hotel room. Just large enough for the bed although the bathroom seem bigger than “normal”.

Tomorrow I’ll find out if there is a view out the window.