Haven’t been much of an early morning start this journey round compared to previous trips where I would get up at 5am to get ready for the early train. It was almost 3 hours to get there from Ueno so I put in the effort this time for the 6:30 train. Took the Hakutaka bullet train from Ueno to Shin-Takaoka early morning and the station was...

Following Google Maps brought me to Imadegawa Station which had plenty of foreigners. I was hoping they were heading the same way as me but turned out they weren’t. Would have been easier to get off the buses. I liked how the bus signs that were digitalised yet had a sliding mechanism to show which stop the next bus was currently at. Trying...