Traveling Japan’s countryside by local trains is very different | Japan by Train

hello world if you've watched the channel for a while you may have seen my Tokyo by train Tokyo by bike or Tokyo by everything videos in those videos I spent an entire day from morning until night exploring Tokyo those were great fun but this time I wanted to get out of Tokyo and use small local trains to do the same thing only this time it's over 3 days and yes my sister-in-law AKO is coming along for the ride we traveled on a diesel train in tochigi ended up on a local taxi tour in Fukushima and then tried to consume as many rice products as possible in nigata despite a bunch of pre-planning this kind of deep Japan trip was trickier than expected due to limited operations of trains hotels and restaurants hi after doing it I can definitely understand why even Japanese people stick to more popular areas but I found the trip thoroughly enjoyable as we got to experience a side of Japan we don't often get to so please join us as we travel Japan by train and also by boat by taxi and by foot but mostly by train okay to start off this trip let's situate ourselves we'll commence our journey a couple hours north of Tokyo at shimoi Mai station which is located in the prefecture of tochigi we'll then make her way up to Fukushima then over to nigata before looping back to the Tokyo [Music] area so we thought the first ride of the day was going to be on the SL taiu the SL standing for scheme locomotive to our surprise and thanks to our new self-proclaimed Dena otaku friend we learned we'd be riding the DL taiu a diesel locomotive yeah uh probably five times different lines have you been around in Japan massive amount of massive amount yeah some kinds of people like just PE out the line all all the world Japan Japan yeah but I'm not that's kind of sort of that what's your style I'm I I pref I most prefer the d10 he really liked this diesel locomotive this one this one this one this one especially this one this one one is it can reverse how who there we go you got open air open air one yeah okay I think we'll go see yeah yeah yeah you been yeah go down go the train had different types of cars which one of them being a seated Dining Car however the star the show was the open a observation car Japan is very safety conscious so I was a bit surprised that they had no warning or speeches about putting your limbs and heads outside of the [Music] train this being a special train people outside were constantly waving at us despite the train traveling quite slowly being a pleasure rideing all the trip went by briskly different sites and scenes were constantly being pointed out to us making the half-hour ride a lively [Music] event if we pause on this for a second you'll see that this is a purpose-built platform for getting shots in front of the [Music] train I don't call hearing the song playing as we were leaving our starting station so I don't know if this is the Train's theme song or the Platforms in any case it sounds like we're going on an old anime Adventure [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] what are we going to do we yeah we're we're riding we're riding the boat down the river ooh this taking off the shoes thing even for sitting on a boat like this seemed very Japanese to me as you can tell I'm very good at it another very Japanese thing to me are these plastic water guards that we were instructed on how to use it was quite a pleasant ride and I'm happy we decided to get on board it's like a very mild rafting trip but instead of riding on an inflatable we were on a wooden boat that required no paddling by its passengers when the flow wasn't fast enough our guys did have to paddle with their giant wooden ores [Music] [Music] I [Music] [Music] don't camping [Music] [Music] I soon found out that I need not worry about our gues getting too tired from paddling as they had help on the way [Music] [Music] and here you can see that is a fairly big operation with a crane to pull the bullets out of the water to then be transported back up to the top of the Run AO was laughing at the fact that of course they had a shop at the shuttle waiting area which conveniently didn't come for another 15 minutes oh and the tactics [Music] worked hi it was actually a nice R stop with an excellent view of the train tracks River and blossoming cherry trees come by come by after the shuttle bus returned us to the train station we quickly picked up some bentos before rushing to grab a taxi hi the reason for the taxi ride was the foot path we wanted to go to would be an hour round trip if we were to walk we and by we I mean I generally tried to use trains and our feet as much as possible but there were situations in these smaller places where a short taxi ride made the trip much easier and let us fit more things in that being said if you were to drive a car along this whole route I think you could have a lot of fun but then you'd miss out on all the train rides [Music] [Music] a lot of onen towns like this one kinugawa onen have free foot baths this one's especially seen with a commanding view of the river below I brought the towel something I always always carry on me for my trips around Japan is a set of two small towels for Hot Springs every once in a while I go on sponsored trips but I don't get to fully enjoy the places I visit as I always have to be filming even when it's filming myself relaxing or doing fun things luckily this trip is not sponsored at all but I was still busy making sure I got shots of us relaxing at the foot bath although after I threw the Drone up in the air I got a few minutes of Peace before it was on the road again to make sure we didn't miss the next train so as you may have noticed from some of the shots many of the buildings in the town are in various stes of dilapidation during the 1970s there was a huge hotel construction boom but in the 1990s with the bursting of the economic bubble a local bank that was a major lender for many of the hotels went bust and the hotel's followed suit so if you visit kinugawa onen today you'll notice that many of the facilities haven't had a major update in decades a book called ugly Japan said that kinugawa was Japan's third ugliest place in the country I think the ranking is overly harsh but it does make me wonder what it was like a few decades ago when the town would have been at its peak night it turns out tapping my IC card on that reader was a bit of a mistake which we'll get to later I don't think there's anyone at the station this train started its Journey from Asaka station in Tokyo and will carry us all the way to aizu Tajima in Fukushima so this train is a bit of a luxury train so not only do you pay a base fair but a premium one as well for a train like this we were supposed to buy a ticket from a machine versus using our IC cards to tap in as you saw there were no attendant at the station to inform us of this but on board there was an attendant there to collect cash from us and as far as I remember he can only accept cash I did make a point to bring about 30,000 yen in cash with me because you never know when you'll need to use it when traveling Japan especially in rural areas but didn't I think AO was right that the cost for the Bento was a bit high for the volume of food received although given the cut of meat it could have been well within reason but [Music] [Music] [Music] at the transfer Point ISU Tajima the next train was waiting for us so after taking a quick shot of the front of the train we hustled over to our next and more humble chariot for [Music] for any potential Travelers that are worried that they wouldn't be able to take these trains because they don't know the system don't be embarrassed or shy even born and bred Japanese like AO don't know how they [Music] work what surprised me about ISU Tajima was all the newly built homes I don't know what's happening in this town but it's bucking the trend of other stations along the line which are mostly in Decline [Music] even though the last train was luxurious the windows were quite dirty so I was relieved to board this train and find that the windows were very wellmaintained and clear to film through [Music] as we progressed through the stations we picked up many students along the [Music] way again having cash on hand comes in handy I wonder what would happen if you didn't have cash on hand would they tie you up on board and take you to one of the bigger stations would they give you a bill that you'd promise to pay [Music] later I think most knowledgeable Riders would have purchased a ticket in advance or had the exact cash ready without having to use the change machine or shown their commuter pass I suspect most Riders are regulars with a commuter pass [Music] [Applause] [Music] is there a toilet you think there's a toilet at though toilet yeah is there a toilet coin lockers right toilet are here right here yeah but I have to go okay bye-bye y so you take it from here and then you have to spray it like this [Music] yeah this is why you always have hands for right you want me to film you do you want me to film you do you want me to film you will we have to do this I think they still [Music] sleeping why you might not be able to grasp about these IM Imes is how dark it's becoming with advances in technology cameras can now see better in the dark than our own eyes so if I adjust the image this is how I remember what my eyes saw two us okay let's [Music] go I love how AKO is committed to filming while equally being committed to being scared of the whole ordeal hi hi more he [Music] [Music] because I wanted to film total no hity we ended up walking 40 minutes in the relative dark to our yoka I found the walk pleasant but it's the kind of trade-off you have to make in rural Japan when you don't have a car at 7:00 in the evening that train is the last train of the day in that direction what do hey good morning we're now on day two of our local train trip and we're leaving our yoka at 6:15 in the morning without any breakfast this has got to be one of the creepiest careful children at play Signs I've ever seen it was a lovely morning we strolled 15 minutes to the local train station yogam onen it's quite a beautiful station with a traditional that roof and a foot bath I didn't even have time to dip my feet in as the train was coming soon at night I had noticed that a lot of the local homes while not thatched had similar designs with massive roofs my assumption is that the design is made with snow in mind as the area gets a decent amount of snow in the winter most cats I meet in Tokyo are very standoffish so I was quite excited to meet a local Countryside cat unfortunately I had no food to pay tribute and was promptly [Music] rejected again this morning there were many students boarding the train getting to and from the stations students will arrive by foot bike bus or a parents vehicle how these rural areas generally work is that there will be a High School located in a more populous area that the students will commute to and from via train so you'll see the train schedule as time to accommodate this not and again we purchased our tickets from staff while on route to our destination although I didn't film it the train was absolutely packed with students traveling to Nishi wakam matu station where we would have a 30-minute layover before boarding a train on the tadami line [Music] speee what we failed to realize with our breakfast plans was that the closest convenience store was 10 minutes away by foot the next door grocery store was still not open yet so leaving the station there's actually an attendant who manually checks the tickets awesome many of the students picked up their bikes for the final leg of their trip to school I would have really appreciated a ride of my own I found myself jogging to the comini While most of the students laxidasical went on their [Music] way thank you once more this train became packed with students commuting to school Lucky them they didn't need to wake up nearly as early as their counterparts on the previous train we rode on after about a half hour the students arrived at their high school once again they were fortunate in that their school was extremely close to the station it was only a quick walk over the pedestrian bridge with the students disembarked the locomotive became the scenic senior train the average age retired seating became plentiful and we could finally sit down and enjoy our breakfast and I guess I should explain exactly why we ate our dinner and breakfast on the train a lot of yans traditional Japanese hotels come with both dinner and breakfast which is great especially when they're located in small towns that don't have restaurants open at these times a downside is that they generally have strict eating time ours would only serve dinner until 6:30 p.m. and breakfast after 700 a.m. sadly our train schedule had us arriving after dinner was over and leaving before breakfast started this train takes 4 hours to do a complete route from end to end and thus comes equipped with a toilet and something I never knew existed on local trains a garbage can as well that's a bit of a joke since it's difficult to find a garbage can in many places in Japan when I discovered you can open the windows on the tadami line it was a paradigm shift as you can see the clarity and angle of filming increased dramatically the scenery along the tadami river was beautiful so how about I shut my food hole and let you enjoy [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] the next is is thank you for traveling with us and will afford to serving you again for for so the problem with riding on such a small small local line is that the schedule is very limited only three trains a day that do the whole run there's also the challenge of getting around once you get to a location fortunately taxis exist and we called ahead to book one this tactic will only work at the bigger stations so we made sure that where we were getting off would have taxi service extra lucky for us the taxi company was offering a special government sponsored sightseeing service we could use the taxi for only 1,000 yen an hour which is incredibly affordable the taxi driver also acted as our local guide taking us to all the scenic spots in the [Music] area let's go hi hi hi let's get there take [Music] off the driver had never seen a drone in operation before while he was a bit shot at first he quite enjoyed seeing the view from the sky although he didn't trust my Landing skills whatsoever and made sure to stand several meters back [Music] m today the boats were not to ply the waters and as you'll see this pattern of rest would follow us throughout the rest of the day [Music] next we went to a Cera we can only imagine how much more beautiful it would be the month after when everything would be green or in the fall when the colors would be a spectacular mix of yellows Browns and reds [Music] [Music] so you know what so maybe we'll have some Bakery this is lunch because the ramen places were closed the driver felt so bad about the shop closures that he returned with some warm onik [Music] for those talking about over tourism in Japan I can tell you that it's definitely not happening over here and in fact in the majority of places around Japan however for those top tourist spots yeah over tourism is very much a real thing you might have seen a similar scene at other locations in Japan but if you don't know these are dolls set up to greet passing train passengers and now for the highlight of the area the carbonated Cold Springs for [Music] [Laughter] M hey right I thought the carbonated Cold Springs were absolutely magnificent and my only disappointment was that they weren't closer to the hot springs which we needed to hop back into the taxi to get to for [Music] the only fortunate thing about the situation was that there were multiple hot springs in the area so we went to a kind of Cooperative onen run by the city but before we could part ways with the taxi driver aquo had to fill out a quick tourism survey which was a fair trade for the big discount we received so the water source is carbonated hot springs and you can see the deposits that have built up over the years the community Hot Springs were only 300 Yen but you do need to bring your own soap and towels while the men's side had visitors the woman's side was empty and AEL took the chance to get a few shots for you or maybe she wanted to show off her nails who knows since this is community run they leave giant wooden paddles for mixing the hot water which you can have flow in by removing the stone stopper after relaxing in the onen it was time for us to sit down and enjoy the onity we received with our taxi gone we had a 35-minute walk to catch the second to last train of the day there's supposed to be a little bridge over here a foot bridge that you can go across and it looks like it exists based on where we ended up walking through my assumption is that the bridge was for the power generation company to use because otherwise it seems like an odd place for a bridge given there was a bigger one right beside [Music] it a problem we ran into was that we were running out of cash so we decided to use the ATM at the local post office there's no ATMs that will give us money and there's no just ATMs at all in this town so do we have enough money to get to oh I guess we'll see if they'll let us on the train foree fore foree [Music] while the cherry blossoms were gorgeous I imagine that if we had traveled 1 month later the whole area would have been much Greener or a couple months earlier and it would have been a snow Paradise especially in the prefecture we're about to enter nigata [Music] we were relieved to find that we had enough cash to make it to our destination but we're concerned about whether we'd find an ATM to withdraw cash from as we still had one more night of accommodations to pay for [Music] we're rich we're rich rich because you're [Music] poor hey I don't even know why we picked up snacks since the evening meal would be kaisaki a traditional multi-course meal in other words it would be a lot of food and that's a wrap for day two good night you can tell we were staying with some elderly folk as by the time we ate breakfast at 7:30 a.m. the only sign of our fellow guests were the empty dishes as we were now in uuma famous for Rice we decided that the theme of the day would be rice our goal was to try and consume as many rice things as possible setting out in the morning we spotted a traditional thatch roof Manor next door and were compelled to drop by upon stepping in I realized how much I like Windows natural light and heat while it looked Grand from the outside it was cold dark and Smoky so plus one for modern homes the electrical panel was indeed fascinating and you can visually see how much technology has progressed especially when you look over to the modern day breaker box that manages the power nowadays next to the house they showcased all the tools and clothing locals used to use and wear it turns out that there's a lot you can do with straw after that quick detour we set out on foot to see a rice processing plant if you're a keen Observer you may have noticed that there's absolutely no rice growing the only hint of green we could find was in this viny greenhouse so I'm certain you won't be shocked to hear that there was no rice being processed at the time reeling from this discovery we trudged back across town to drown our SS in nihonshu or sake whose main ingredient is rice on our way we looked upon a town with sharp roofs and many ponds while the roofs are designed to prevent snow from building up the 90° angle still baffles my brain a bit I don't know why ponds were in such abundance but my guess is that they're taking advantage of the free flowing irrigation water if you happen to have more insight please do share in no time because the town isn't that big we made it to the brewery anyone who makes the effort to get out to the sake Brewery will be rewarded with a large selection of bottles that you can freely pour for yourself for [Music] foree [Music] for fore get they store all their in here it is 4° c y [Music] yondoo it's a natural refrigerator so I'm jogging a little bit because the bus stop it's 4 minute walkway and the bus will come in 4 minutes but if the bus comes early another bus doesn't come for an hour and a half so I'm just jogging to be safe so this is the little sign for the bus stop [Music] as with other stations we used our travel hack of hailing a taxi up to this point the only rice products we' been able to find was the cooked rice at our accommodation and the sake we had for second breakfast Consulting with AO she figured that going to a m noi a roadside station would be her best bet so off we went a pro tip when you want to find local Goods is visiting a m noi It's a combination of a local farmers market gift shop and restaurant call you Call hi whatever the area is famous for and it's always famous for something you can find at the local M noi and success we immediately found rice most of the products on sale were made from it now here's my take if you're getting pure product like bags of rice I don't think you can go wrong it should be cheaper fresher and overall better quality than getting it from other places around the country if they are products that are normally made from rice like sake AKA NIU amazake AKA sweet fermented rice drink Mochi AKA rice cakes orbe AKA rice crackers it's hard to make a [Music] mistake now if you buy products that aren't normally made from rice I think your chance of success will be fairly hit and miss not knowing what would be hit and what would be Miss we felt it our duty to purchase an ass of them and let you [Music] know by the way nigata is famous for its Metal Works so I took the opportunity to pick up some quality nail clippers when I got home and tried them out I knew I had had made the right choice before leaving we needed to fuel up our bodies which we happily did at the cafeteria these are great places to taste the local cuisine killed daddy Mo night so we took a taxi to the roadside stop um but it costs 1,700 Yen so we decided we're just going to walk back to the station there's no real bus service around here or if there is it's just very infrequent the train station was a 3 km walk so not super far but not super close either the biggest quote unquote hack I found for walking around Japan is to look at a map and find the green or blue areas you often come across nice walking routes like this whether you're in the middle of Tokyo or a small city called anuma in nigata yeah so and look at that what is that [Music] [Laughter] [Music] speee foree H you have to follow the sign that's where the station is let's go are you tired AO hi really hi what did you do today since we still had a bit of time I searched the map and found that I had favorited a nearby town called yuzawa upon further investigation I recalled that I was famous for skiing and onsens which are two of my favorite things however as the theme of the video goes April wasn't the best season to be visiting a ski area but since it was on the way back towards Tokyo and had a shinkansen station we decided to hop on the local train and check it [Music] [Music] out right out of the ticket Gates we realized that this station had all the rice products our side quest at the MEO W was unnecessary but no [Music] [Music] regrets there are too many rice products there's too much stuck [Music] I have to eat it yeah I think we're going to go in there today right we're doing that I think so hi [Music] M it's very tasty but it's a very subtle flavor but it's very [Music] tasty oh this is an interesting taste it's milk and I like it yeah maybe this work is hard though hard work we watch a [Music] lot this is incredible look at my hand I don't think I can eat this maybe hum your dream really okay compa this is crazy I can't even fit my mouth around it living the dream I finally got to the meat I don't know what's going on anymore it's just I it's the oni's fault it's just too big you can't eat it cleanly [Music] whatever that's too much rice for too many choices [Music] ah [Music] [Music] you like the dry one one coin we have two so you can get two drinks or one drink one coin I love tasty this is your last coin okay that's one [Music] okay pick the driest ones really who the best of all what do you think I don't really drink Sake but at 500 yen it's pretty easy to recommend some sake [Music] party time the train was late so we caught the train to go to Sendai instead of the train that is going towards Sendai so we have to go all the way to Sendai and then go back to anomia so we arrive in anomia at 11 p.m. it's going to be a long train [Music] ride it went from 30 minutes to 3 [Music] hours [Music] bye-bye I you so happy not why we're supposed to arrive at like 8:20 and now we're going to arrive at 11:00 p.m. foree Ave Water night [Music] sake leav leftover sake stuff oh it's very moist [Music] comp very very moist ins okay B this is Ban are we crooked [Music] it's cloudy where is she you have some nice chunks I like the flavor it's nice and subtle yeah so yeah it's not too sweet sometimes it can be very sweet but that's a nice a nice balance that's 143 calories let's go I broke the top by accident [Music] I like a rice wafer with a [Music] cookie oh [Music] really these are big ones this is a very common rice product so of course it's tasty Y what [Music] M thanks for watching see you next time peace what's a local train trip like where you're from [Music]

Channel: Life Where I'm From

Views: 154,479

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Id: fO3v7CFmsPc

Length: 66min 16sec (3976 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 16 2024