There’s a typhoon coming tomorrow and my Niigata friends convinced me to get to Niigata early and avoid travel on typhoon day. Another friend traveling in Japan just emailed and told me she missed a bunch of planned stops on her trip because the typhoon is already in her area.

I was supposed to go Yamagata, where I think I’ve seen most of what I needed to see (Yamadera in particular) but I have the most fun showing up places that have nothing and making a day of it. I think I’ve realized now that even more of what I wanted to see could’ve been done with day trips from Sendai, but where’s the adventure in that?  It’s also more exciting to cancel my trains and a hotel room in Yamagata and then find something for one night in Niigata on short notice. I found one room at Toyoko Inn and it was only $38. I’m remembering why I decided to pay 2-6 times as much for hotels this trip because the walls here are THIN. The Bose Sleepbuds I bought take care of most of the noise and the rooms are always clean and fairly big for Japan.

Anyway, I was supposed to go from Akita to Morioka to Sendai on the Shinkansen, and then over to Yamagata on a normal train. Instead, I went from Akita to Morioka back to Akita, and then on to Niigata. This was my chance to ride the Akita Shinkansen, a mini-Shinkansen, that reverses direction in the middle of the trip. In Morioka it is either attached to or detached from the Shinkansen that goes to Tokyo. It goes 300km/hr on the main track to Tokyo, but much slower on the Morioka-Akita section.

What I did was get on the Akita Shinkansen from Akita to Morioka, get off, and get on another one that was going from Morioka to Akita. That was three hours. Then I got on the “express” train to Niigata which took another 3½ hours. But first, I found a Tullys that took me a while to get into and had a morning set (the department store was closed and you had to go in a door that I thought was locked so I spent a lot of time walking in circles). Only half a sandwich but it was delicious. Ham and egg and I think gruyere cheese.

Then I bought some tea and some chips and got on the Shinkansen portion of the ride. I also got one of these smoothies that I’ve been drinking every day, hoping it has some nutrients since I don’t eat that well while traveling.

Niigata is getting hard to access because the rail companies figure a Shinkansen from Tokyo is all they need. So getting to any of the other towns that has a different Shinkansen is inconvenient and requires backtracking to Tokyo, which is what I was supposed to do on typhoon day. From Akita you can ride the Inaho down the coast a couple of times a day.

The green car itself was kind of weird, with partitions between the seats so you couldn’t see the seat in front, just the partition. You can see it in the picture of the Akita Ekiben I got for lunch.

Not the best I’ve had, but not bad.

On the way down I listened to podcasts and played with my phone. Used Wikipedia to look up all the towns we stopped at, etc, and also the route from the station to the hotel. I think I must’ve looked up the wrong hotel, because it wasn’t 6 minutes walking, it was more like 25. I should’ve taken a cab. Like I said, Toyoko Inn, nice spacious clean room. They gave me a room on a higher floor away from the elevator, but the walls are definitely thin.

I only left the hotel to get some dinner and I think the area I’m in is mostly drinking establishments. I wandered around for a while because I can’t get out of a drinking place here without spending at least ¥5000. Plus the last two nights I’ve been to breweries and I’ve gone into why a taster tray made up of full pints is not ideal.

I found a half-dead department store, and I thought it would have a restaurant floor. It had one restaurant, an okonomiyaki place, and only one other couple was there. It was passable, though. Niigata probably isn’t known for Okonomiyaki. I have to wait for Osaka to get the good stuff.

Yeah, I caved and had ONE beer.

Much less DIY than I’d expect, but whatever. It was fine. It came prepared, and you just put on the toppings.

Tomorrow I see old friends. I hope the typhoon heads the other way!