Skip to main content

The Japan Rail NEWS tour

It's my goal to visit the compass points of Japan's railway system, from the North, East, West and South. I'm trying a more dynamic way of sharing updates about this trip, so if you want to follow me please go to allrite.at/blog

Update 27 September 2017

I've finished writing almost 30,000 words of text of the trip and am compiling it along with images and video into Stories which I will release on a separate site. It's a huge process! I may also publish each day separately on this blog in future.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My first overseas trip: Singapore and Malaysia

I've always loved to travel. My first memory is of sitting in a an aircraft, aged 18 months or so. Yet I never believed that I could travel overseas. To me, it seemed like something you did when you retired, or if you were rich. That all changed when I met B. She had not only travelled overseas, she was from overseas . B was born in Malaysia and arrived in Australia, with her family, in 1988. She still had relatives and friends in Malaysia and Singapore and she, along with the remainder of her family, planned to return for a visit during the Australian summer of 1995. At the time I was staying in B's mother's house while we were studying at university. After B's father passed away the year before I was the nominal "man" of the house and its high maintenance garden; her brother Michael was studying up in Queensland. B and I were quite inseparable and her mother kindly offered to pay for me to join them on their vacation. So it was that I obtained my very firs...

Down the Oito Line

Riding the length of the Oito Line from Itoigawa to Shinjuku (well, Matsumoto, really, but you might as well go the whole way) has long been a dream of mine. It suddenly gained urgency when I read that the last length of it between Itoigawa to Minami-Otari would be closed once the Hokuriku Shinkansen to Kanazawa and Toyama opens by next year. Now, as mentioned last time, B and Alex are among those that would much rather catch the very fast Shinkansen, but in the end she decided to follow me, despite the very early morning. We rode the Hokuetsu Express from Toyama to Itoigawa, completing a little more of that West Coast for me. Though the coastal stretch was short there were some nice views at times. I should like to see more of Itoigawa one day, explore its geology. But now we had to quickly cross over the platform bridge to catch our train to Minami-Otari. To my great delight it was a KiHa 120 railcar, my favourite. I felt a degree of sadness standing up at the front...