Our Travels In Japan (and other places): Tokyo to Iida

We got out for our last run along the Sumidagawa this morning around 5, and encountered some of the denizens of the park

Don't worry about the guy in the back, he got his breakfast, too.

Park light or robot?

Found along the path. Apparently, they forgot to tell the cats not to walk on the wet cement.

We packed up and said goodbye to Toukaisou hostel until next Sunday, and headed out to Ueno to start the journey to Iida City. It's not a terribly long trip in terms of distance, but it takes close to 6 hours with layovers and transfers. We arrived just a few minutes before Andersen's opened up, so we were treated to a nice farewell breakfast.

Not healthy, but fresh and yummy

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We took the Yamanote from Ueno to Shinjuku (30 minutes), had a 20 minute layover, boarded the Azusa Kyuuko (limited express) from Shinjuku to Okaya (2.5 hours), had a 50 minute layover in Okaya, then ended on the JR Iida local train (2 hours) the rest of the way to Iida City, whose station looks like a barn (it was raining, so no pic. We'll get one tomorrow).

Iida City proper, where we are staying, is not a bustling metropolis. In fact, it's downright comatose. Granted, it was a Sunday afternoon, but there were almost no plain restaurants anywhere within several miles. There were a ton of izakayas and "snack bars". Izakayas are bars with food, sometimes even good food, but still bars. Snack bars are bars with almost no food, but with women who are paid to be friendly companions to drunk Japanese men. To be clear, they really are just there to talk to and hang out with, nothing more. Still creepy and still not a place we can go get dinner. But that is the bulk of the culinary offerings of Iida City, or at least the area by the station, which is usually where most of the nightlife is in a small town, so this was not very encouraging.

It also didn't help that the city essentially shuts down from 2pm to 6pm on Sunday. So, after looking unsuccessfully for a place that served real food that wasn't a bar, we returned to our hotel room (a nice western-style hotel with rooms three times the size of our hostel and about a tenth of the personality) and did some searching. There really IS nothing in downtown Iida but izakayas and snack bars. Not even a McDonalds, which is almost as rare in Japan as it would be in the US. But a few stations down there appeared to be some shopping districts and a Coco Curry House, which usually indicates other restaurants, as well.

So, we waited an hour for the next train to show up (we are so spoiled in Tokyo. I think we waited seven minutes, once) and take us about 3 miles down the road to Moto-zenkouji. Now, this train station was also completely dead

and unmanned, as were most of the train stations out here. The conductor of the train runs the length of the train each stop to collect fares, then runs to the gate to check everyone as they passed through. He does the work that takes three people on other train lines. I got tired watching him. Anyway, the station was quiet, but a few blocks away, there were shops, restaurants and people (none of which were present in Iida). We ended up at Coco Curry, but we'll mostly likely be back there to try some of the other local restaurants later this week.

I can't stress enough how hard it is to find this many vegetables in a Japanese dish

Full and much happier knowing there IS food outside of bars in the Iida area, we walked over the to local Book Off across the street and I picked up a few more Japanese editions of PS3 games (gotta love used book stores!), and we headed back to the station and eventually the hotel.

So, mostly a boring travel day, though we did come across some interesting signs on our trip.