Saitama and Gunma

Or: a tale of two prefectures.

Over our time here, Ingrid became obsessed with visiting as many different prefectures as possible. On our last free weekend before leaving Tokyo she came up with a mad plan to visit three new prefectures in one day out on the railway.

We first got the train to Omiya, in Saitama prefecture. This is actually the nearest prefecture to where we live, but had never actually visited it before. However Omiya is also the home of the railway museum. So we went there in the morning. There were many old trains.

You can enjoy the old school carriages. Not like the Yamanote line today!

The original 1960s-era shinkansen! Classic blue and white livery.

And the modern day one, wearing the fetching green and pink of the Tohoku line -- a service we used a lot in this past year.

The museum is very child-focused, but it was a very dreich day, so no one was playing on the shinkansen themed rockers. The concrete overpass is the real high-speed line, where the real deal was frequently passing.

At this point the plan went wrong! We had not booked our next train, and it was already full! So the glorious three prefectural outing was cut short to a mere two. Next stop: Jomokogen in Gunma.

Turns out Jomokogen is the name of a gigantic shinkansen station in the middle of nowhere. Actually there is a small town called Minakami a short walk away, but we went out the back of the station, in the opposite direction to the town, uphill towards towards nothing much.

Actually we came across a very nice temple there. Very close to the archetype of a japanese temple. Very quiet, but not totally deserted.

In fact we were deceived by fake photos on Google Maps. We thought that at the top of the hill behind the temple, there was a well preserved castle. However there was just some tree stumps. On closer inspection, the supposed Jomokogen castle was actually a picture of Himeji castle, one of the most famous in Japan. Oops!

Still, at least the temple was nice.

Back down in the town there were some historical thatched houses, and a few other old fashioned structures in a nice park.

Unfortunately some vandal had erased the info about this archer, so we do not know who is depicted here, or why.

And then we got the train back to Tokyo. A weird day out visiting two new prefectures! A lot of packing was waiting for us.