>>1283529We wanted to take the Shinkansen to see Fuji, because we had a full rail pass and we hadnt taken the bullet train yet.
At a standing sushi bar in Tokyo station, at 11am, my girlfriend orders some more "sake" (salmon) to the sushi chef. 5 minutes later, the waitress places a large cup of "sake" at her side.
We were too embarrassed to say anything, and didn't want to cause a fuss. So she had a third of it, and I downed the rest.
It was very nice, I remember. warm and mild tasting. i half blame what happens next on that cup of sake.
I was looking at a stylised "London underground" style map of the network and I decided that we'd take the Hokuriku Shinkansen to Sakudaira, then "travel down" to see Fuji. Didn't seem far, plus, we could go on the bullet train for the first time and we didn't have to pay for it?. exciting stuff.
That map (helped by the sake) tricked me good. I didn't realise that taking that path would cause us to go 200 miles the wrong direction, and we ended up deep in the heart of Nagano.
The line that we "traveled down" after Sakudaira was the Koumi line. Of course, the map fooled me as to it's length. We stopped at every station on the line, and gradually it dawned on us how long it was going to take. It was much, much longer than expected. right in the middle of the afternoon school rush. Plus, the Koumi line is this single track rural line with no limited services, so we never went over 30mph (it felt) anyway.
The hours started slipping by. it was overcast that day, so not too hot, which was a blessing. Then it turned out that our little 2 car train only went halfway down the Koumi line, and at the station of Koumi itself, it would stop, then go back the way it came. So we had to get out and wait for a train from the other direction to arrive, to take us the rest of the way. This was an hour wait.
