Mark Does Japan: Day 38

24 November 2025 Filed in: Photography | Travel

Sunday, 23 November 2025

Today was a day to take a short trip into the countryside on a train. So what’s so special about that you might ask, well it was on the Nishikigawa Seiryū Line. Still unaware why that might be interesting? I visited Seiryu Miharashi Station.

Sadly I couldn’t get off as the only trains that actually stop and allow people to step onto the station only run once a month. Pretty crap rail service you might say but this station, built at a cost of approximately 112 million yen, is only a tourist attraction and there is no way to reach it except for that one train a month. It is surrounded by forest and the river. A pretty bonkers idea but I am in Japan and it did make me visit it, sort of.

The railway company is a 3rd tier company and has 4 diesel units, each painted in a different colour representing the four seasons.

At the end of the line is another “attraction”, the Tokotoko train. This is not a train but an ex-expo (not not that one, Aichi in 2005) electric people mover which utilises a track that was built but never commissioned as a railway line. The notable things about this train is that it only runs on weekends and holidays (good timing Mark), it runs to an onsen “town” (there was a day onsen at the end of the line, and a closed but not boarded up onsen next door) and one of the tunnels has murals constructed by students using stones that glow in UV light.

On the foliage front it was still pretty green, although there was also a lot of tall bamboo.

front of the single unit train

no mistaking this train

I think this is the autumn train, clean blue streams. We passed two more, coupled together, at a station heading in the other direction.

two more of their trains

Maybe that’s summer and spring. The other train is yellow.

love the power pylons painted as a warning

nice countryside

OK here is the sign for the famous station.

the famous station’s sign

There is a river between the station and those trees (and the road) but this is the view you get while sitting on the train. There was some commentary about the sightseeing spots as they came along but only in Japanese.

I had some time to kill once I arrived at Nishikicho station before the TokoToko but it was a very sleepy Sunday morning in a small Japanese town and nothing much was happening. Also it was still green so not even interest foliage but I did a lap, found some steps leading up to a shrine. Knees said you are joking, no, so I took the road up.

nope, nope, nope

It may have been the long way around but I got to the shrine anyway.

what’s at the top of those steps

very green

Back to the Tokotoko

tokotoko

open car again

Nice day for an open car ride, not so nice was the leg room or rather lack of leg room but I survived.

art in a tunnel

more of it

and another

All very creative.

There are 6 services each day and I had picked 3 to go up and 6 to come back. Probably should have picked 4 to come right back immediately because there wasn’t much at the other end but I didn’t know that before going.

a bit of contrast

the unwanted fruit

a little buddha

Fortunately there was a train back to Iwakuni soon after the Tokotoko returned so I came back to town looking for dinner.

I thought I might like sushi but both sushi restaurants I tried were fully booked so no joy there. Next choice was Hiroshima style okonomiyaki again.

This time I had undon as the base rather than soba and I liked that better. Of note that in this restaurant although there were people milling around the doorway they weren’t really queuing, they had placed their names on a list inside the restaurant and someone came out to take their order and then later still they got a seat. I don’t think I would have got a seat faster if I had known that that was a new way of processing a queue.