From Nagoya to Nagoya, riding the Iida Line and KURURUing through Nagano

The parenthetical on the board shows the super rare service pattern I described above – it notes that it actually skips two stops, despite the fact it’s a “local train”, or more literally a 普通 futsuu “normal train”, which definitionally stop at every station outside of cases where stations are closed long-term (i.e. all trains pass through, none at all stop) due to weather and/or extraordinarily low ridership. I do wonder what if there’s an official distinction between 普通 futsuu and 快速 kaisoku ‘rapid’? I could certainly see the argument for calling it this instead, as it does skip stops… nothing says “rapid” quite like taking seven hours to go 205 km, after all.

My box seat on the train. Of course, I had all four seats to myself… and the four next to me, and the four in front of me. Not many people, especially not past the first few stops! Ridership drops off so significantly once exiting the city of Toyohashi, actually, that JR Central hasn’t even bothered to give station numbering codes to stations on the line past the first half dozen.

Ready for a loooong single trip. Brought lunch with me.

I LOVE GOAAATTTSSS. I love how he’s eating the corner of the paper.

Hon-Nagashino Station still had a stamp! Take that, JR Central, who are furiously trying to find and destroy these and have even denied their existence. Surely the lack of English ability will prevent them from ever finding the info I’m revealing publicly here. >:D

Kowada Station! This is ranked as the #1 most secluded station in all of Japan. I mean… look at it on Google Maps. No road access. Zero inhabited buildings nearby, for miles. The Wikipedia article talks about how the nearest road, or any sign of civilization, is 50-minutes away, uphill, through the forest.

Met another train fan on the Iida Line. He was surprised to see a foreigner riding, and when I saw he also took a picture of Kowada Station, I struck up a conversation, and he offered me one of his cool hand-printed business cards! I showed him my IC card collection and he actually wanted to take a picture of it, and when I looked him up later, he had posted about me on his blog saying that he didn’t know there were foreign railfans in Japan… and mused that he was initially a bit worried that was “someone strange” because I only had a t-shirt on, lmao (train cars are heated!!!! to very high, often uncomfortable, temperatures! Japan will never be satisfied!!! I get asked “aren’t you cold?” literally daily by strangers in winter! ahhh!)

Nice view of the Tenryu River, although the colors were a little… dull, in winter. Overall, scenery-wise, it was an OK ride as best, but I’ve heard others say much more positive things, so I’d imagine it’s probably a lot more lush and vibrant in summer or fall!

Mountains! Snowy ones! We like those.

In the train, JR Central was showing off how many totally obscure/useless subsidiaries they have. I looked one up and it was like “this is a separate company just for printing posters, and they have twelve employees”. Are we really sure this is a train company?

7-minute stop at Iida Station (hey, that’s the name of the line). Snow’s beginning to appear on the ground!

Iida Station had a lot of stamps. These are usually reserved for events, like when they run a special train specifically to go take people around to the hikyo stations, but the tourist info desk in the station let me stamp them when I asked. They were a little surprised I knew about them, hehe :)

Here in the countryside, JR has left many stations unstaffed, so local towns have taken them over, entering into an agreement with the company where they can be “contract stations” and issue some types of tickets. In this case, the local town even made their own stamp and installed it here!

No support for IC cards on this line, naturally. Would any local train trip be complete without seeing one of these signs?

Incredible Brutalist station!!!!! Be still my heart.

I liked this little hut, the station building directly across from the concrete wall, made of simple straight lines and circles.

Platform 0 spotted. My fave.

Okaya Station lit up at night!

I went to this little eatery outside the station, was the only person there, and ordered horse katsudon. Nagano Prefecture is known for basashi, so I guess them having horse makes sense, but I still didn’t super expect it!

When this train pulled in, I got to hear the famous announcement before it went away forever! I actually didn’t know any of the above at the time of my trip, or that it was a ~thing~, so I just happened to notice the iconic voice and was naturally charmed. It certainly gets your attention, so I can see why it became so beloved, even among non-railfans.

I visited just one month before the so-called “metropolitan region” (i.e. Greater Tokyo) Suica area was expanded to cover Nagano and Matsumoto, as these posters show. After March 15, 2025, people became able to travel between the two cities with their IC card… arguably convenient, but now makes it impossible to do stopovers on paper tickets in that entire area, since they’re considered “within the same city area” despite spanning four prefectures over 200 km, which is quite ridiculous. But on the other hand, it does enable crazier stuff like this, sooo… Also, for what it’s worth, this is a weirdly wide/spacious fare adjustment window – and, as a friend pointed out, somewhat unusual for JR East to separate the lines for fare adjustment from the staffed gate.

I liked how the Kamikochi Line, operated by ALPICO Kotsu (formerly known as Matsumoto Dentetsu… as some older signs I saw around led me to learn), just has this small LED monitor installed instead of a normal departure board lol. Will be riding that tomorrow! I like the Frankensteined-on tech that Japan commonly adopts.

Saw this fun typography walking to my hotel in Matsumoto. Tobacco? No, this place sells tzbaZ.

Started snowing as I went for a nighttime walk… to where? Hmm…

…to go play WACCA, of course! A required stop upon the decently uncommon occasion of a remaining cabinet being nearby and accessible from a main station. :D

Snowy train on the low-frequency Oito Line. Check out this photo from Wikipedia of it in spring/summer – I want to go back!!

I liked this geometric colorful playground I spotted from the train.

Azumi-Oiwake, a station around halfway down the line, had this unique stamp that was carved into a piece of smoothed wood. The station isn’t staffed by JR any longer (since the 80s) but run by local residents, and likely provided by the community rather than JR.

The design it had. Black ink is usually a bit messy but this one came out well!

The final station on the section of the line I was riding. Nice and snowy.

Heading back to Matsumoto, which (along with the southern part of the Oito Line) is nestled in the valley between a bunch of mountains, so there’s not much snow as elsewhere.

I liked this quaint little station building I saw on the way back.

Back in Matsumoto Station waiting for my next train, I saw this super cute plushie of Arukuma – the prefectural mascot – sitting in a tourist information office.

And an origami version! His name is a combination of aruku ‘to walk’ (because of all the hiking in the mountains you can do) + kuma ‘bear’. He wears an apple hat.

Most conventional line ticket gates (or, more accurately, 自動改札機 jidou-kaisatsuki ‘automatic ticket gate machines’) can handle up to three tickets at once (see FAQs from JR Hokkaido, JR West) but JR East apparently has a de facto lower limit of only one, for some reason. I think this sign is saying that the gates can, in this case, accept up to two – I assume one base fare and one express fare – since many limited express trains stop at Nagano.

NEVER!!! Don’t do it.

Lots of anime women on the Kamikochi Line, AKA “Highland Rail”.

No IC card usage here, though.

At Shinshimashima Station (quite the interesting station name) the company was having an in-car festival/event in a train parked on the tracks.

They had so many games for kids just like you’d see at a summer festival!!

Switchback at my favorite Obasute Station during a flurry.

Check out the view from Obasute now compared to when I was there last summer… forget the beautiful, sprawling Zenkoji Plain and valley below, I could barely see more than a meter in front of me!

Arrived at Nagano and got my brand-new KURURU, which just released the week prior!!!

More snowy train faces. The red is nice! (My favorite color.)

The Kita-Shinano Line officially terminates at Myōkō-Kōgen, from which point trains are run by Echigo TOKImeki Railway. I talked about the company in my Summer 2024 blogpost too, but one thing I didn’t know then is that the “toki” part of the name is also a reference to the crested ibis, トキ toki, the symbol of Niigata, where the company runs. The birds have a red face, hence the logo design!

SOOOOOOO much snow here. More red/white juxtapositions.

I love this.

LOOK AT THIS PILE. I had a fun chat with the guy (very small, in this photo) with the snowblower who had pretty much created this whole mound by himself through his past hour of work.

The oyaki I bought. Filled with apples!! Yum! I want more now. The texture (very important to me when it comes to food) was fantastic.

Wonderful icicles!

I met some Australian skiers who had come up here (lol classic) and we chatted while I waited for my train back (since, again, I didn’t have time to head to the 県境 kenzakai ‘prefectural border’ – yes, talking with that guy is how I learned this Japanese word) and while they waited for their shuttle to their nearby ski resort. They were, understandably, excited.

Liked this shot of the platform I took from the stairs just as the sun was going down and I was headed back south.

Stopping at a station just past sunset.

Back to Nagano, marching around on my way to my lodging.

Nice lights outside of the station.

In Nagano Omotesando Central Square, right off the main street in the city, is this Olympic Torch Tower and a small “Olympic Memorial Park” recounting the history of the 1998 Olympics. And the rings!

Loved this MAGICAL, hidden little courtyard I walked past. It was completely otherworldly with the warm light and snow falling all around me.

Beautiful trees lit up with lights :)

Local kids had made these lanterns which were on some side streets on the approach to Nagano’s famous temple.

Zenkō-ji lit up in the snow!!! Such a different atmosphere compared to the summer festival that was going on last time I was here. I’ve still never seen this place in the daytime, hahaha.

More lanterns in the snow – hanging paper 提灯 chōchin. I walked around the temple some more, then headed to my inn.

Nice decor on the inside! This was a traditional inn I had found on Jalan, a Japanese site for booking stays like this, which I turned to since there was for some reason nothing else available in the city and a reasonable price. This place was about a half hour walk from the station, nestled in a residential side street, and ended up being really great.

Slushy entranceway. I liked the little snowman someone had built.

It was only around 8 p.m., and I still needed food, so I walked back down the main street and stumbled across a newly opened pizza place… named “GOOD HOMIES PIZZA” (in English), a very amusing name. Turns out the guy just started it for fun, having quit his old job and taken up pizza making as a hobby, and also by chance had a friend in Nagoya who ran a pizza joint of his own that he recommended to me (I had walked by in the past, and of course went when I got back!)

Nagano is SO nice in winter. This place is criminally underrated. I will never not laugh at Japanese people using umbrellas in the snow, though.

To kill some time at night I took the Iiyama Line out to… well, Iiyama.

Pushing a lot of snow!!!! Nice job, train.

Iiyama Station is pretty interesting since it’s, to my knowledge, one of the only Shinkansen stations without a ticket office – you have to do everything yourself on the ticket machines right outside of the gates… but if you have questions or need help, they can help you at the staffed ticket gate, lol.

Apparently the Iiyama Snow Festival was going on this weekend in the city. Someone had built a fun little model railroad track which was running by itself in the otherwise silent station.

Didn’t want to wait for the long local train back, and honestly the time difference is pretty crazy – a full hour vs. 11 minutes – so I bit the bullet (pun not intended) and took the Shinkansen one stop back.

I know there’s already been a million photos like this but, man, lanterns in the snow in the night will always be something I love.

I went back to the cafe I visited in Nagano last summer, called “I’m waiting”, near the station and open decently late, since I had such a great experience there the previous time. AND THEY REMEMBERED ME, HALF A YEAR LATER!!! I asked if they still had shave ice (they were amused and said, hahaha, no, it’s winter) and recommended me some cake instead…

…but then about ten minutes later, came up to the second floor to bring me some free soft serve, knowing I liked cold desserts despite the season (Japanese people are very amused by this). I’m 2/2 for free desserts at this place, dang! Since this trip, I’ve recommended this place a bunch to random people online as a thank you. :)

OK, finally time to head back up to my inn and get some sleep.

Beautiful snowy branches lit up by the spare streetlights on random side roads I wandered down, heading back to where I was staying.

The snow was exceptionally crunchy on the way back on this street in particular.

Snow. Dim light. Nighttime. Me taking a million photos. You get the picture.

Took a side-route this time up these very snowy stairs. I’m insistent that you don’t really need boots in the snow that much – sneakers are fine, just walk in other people’s footprints! Or brush the snow away when you’re done making your own!

Looking back down the little pedestrian walkway and staircase before rounding the corner and heading inside, back to my cozy futon indoors.

I stepped out of my inn in the morning to find a wonderful, bright world of snow!!!!

I took yet another route down to the nearest Nagano Dentetsu station, beneath these magnificent snow-covered branches down unshoveled patchy staircases, winding down the hill and sandwiched right up next to concrete walls and houses above me. Heaven.

A magical, hidden, silent space. Open to the sky, but not a soul around. I would love to have this right outside my front door…

The aforementioned famous macaques sitting in the Jigokudani hot springs adorned the walls of the staircase down to the station. And, as always, we are going to enter.

The first part of riding the full Nagaden Line was a local train to a station located midway, where I’d switch to a limited express to go the rest of the distance. In the two minute transfer time, I (needless to say) ran up the stairs to get the eki-stamp they had.

Loved the sun streaming right through the clouds as the wind and displaced air from my train whisked the morning’s light dusting of snow around. Wheeee.

180+° of pure snow whizzing past you. This was a truly amazing train ride. I sat up front, but went in back to take a video. Should have found a way to get a better panorama too! No one photo can really capture how “wide” and encompassing the whole thing looks or feels. I’d recommend riding this line in winter to anyone.

Arrived at the terminus. The weirdest thing was that the cafe in the station was – my first time ever seeing something like this in Japan – no cash allowed. In rural Nagano???? At a cafe staffed by a human! The family in front of me were talking about how rare/unusual/unexpected it was and I interjected and was like “Right? I was just thinking that!!”

Wonder how long it’s been since this bus has driven somewhere. Looked like a foot of snow on top… well, maybe a few days at most? :D

Nicicles.

Taking the same limited express train back. The trains they use are the old Odakyu Romancecars! People were riding these from Tokyo to Hakone in the 90s and 00s, now repurposed where you can get a stunning wide-angle view of snowy landscapes :)

I didn’t buy a (required) reserved seat ticket ahead of time, so instead I got sold one on the train, my first 補充券 hojuuken “supplemental ticket”. I love the hole punches to represent information: you can see how I went from 🕳️Suzaka to 🕳️Yudanaka, in month 🕳️2 on day 🕳️9, as an 🕳️adult, and my 🕳️seat cost 🕳️¥300. So physical!!! So analog!

Another cool feature of these trains is that the driver sits above you! After we got back into Nagano Station, he let me climb up the ladder and poke my head in to see, but said that any photos inside were strictly forbidden. For “safety”. Despite many photos being public online because the trains are like forty years old. Ooooook.

The scene at Togura Station, where I got off next, was quaint: an on-platform noodle shop! It could be accessed from either side of the ticket gate, with the kitchen built into the wall in the middle.

Through the “Togura Kamiyamada Onsen welcomes you” archway and off in search of ~art~…

Found who I was looking for. 無籍動物 museki doubutsu “Unregistered Animal”, by the truly one-of-a-kind master of Taro Okamoto – one of the most out-of-the-box Japanese thinkers and avant-garde artists to ever live, right alongside Juzo Itami. I thought the following blurb about it, adapted from this blog, was a nice bit of history: “This sculpture was part of a larger project which involved a 4-meter tall version of this little guy for an amusement park for the nearby hot spring facility. Unfortunately, the project was short-lived due to the Matsushiro earthquake swarm in the mid-1960s. So, all that’s left is one of the two smaller versions of this dog-like sculpture created in 1959. Apart from that, not much is known about the sculpture—which coincidentally stands on an unnamed road—but one thing is for sure: if you ever visit this particular sculpture, you’re probably one of the very few people to have ever seen this in person!” That’s certainly the feeling I had when I wandered out here too!

I came wearing my Tower of the Sun shirt, obviously. Dressed for the occasion.

Ueda Station had THE MOST stamps I’d ever seen at a station (to-date… but was later passed in Shikoku! to write about in the future!!!) 21 total, mostly from here on Shinano Railway but also a couple from JR East and Uedadentetsu too.

I liked the cover of this zine I found in the gift shop of the Ueda City Museum of Art (Santomyuze), where I wandered around for a bit while waiting for my next train. For some reason it kinda reminds me of the artstyle of Michael Furler’s graphic novel “Bark Bark Girl”?

Ueda Station had an interesting shape façade on one of its many sides.

Boarding the Uedadentetsu Line. Yes, it’s not written “Ueda Dentetsu”, the official English orthography consistently renders it as one word. And yes, the doors were fully manual!!!!!

Uhhh. In my excitement about the manual doors that I had to lug open myself, and recording that video, I didn’t open them quite wide enough and a pin on my backpack got snagged, and fell onto the tracks as I passed through. This photo was a reminder for myself as to exactly where it dropped.

T H E   M O T O R M A N

Fare revision time? Can’t update the digital display for some reason? Well, I guess this works.

Bought this two-company all-you-can-ride ticket which let me travel both the Uedadentetsu Line, and also continue on Shinano Railway out to Kariuizawa (and back!)

Arrived at the final station, Bessho-Onsen. Apparently this is the area where Summer Wars is set. And the train features in the movie! Don’t really remember it too well from so many years ago…

A unique feature of the company’s line is that employees, including the stationmaster, wear traditional Japanese hakama to welcome people to the terminal station.

After dropping my pin (of an Omae Umasou da na dinosaur from that I had bought last year at a library in Saga!) I told the driver, asked him if he could call the station, and they retrieved it from the tracks after the train had pulled away, presumably with a very long arm-grabber-thingy. When I got back, I asked at the ticket gates, and they presented my pin to me, bundled carefully in an envelope. Omotenashi in action!

Ueda Station had yet another interesting façade on another one of its many sides.

Continuing east on my next Shinano Railway train. I liked the color of this one!

This family made me sit by them in their box seat and the kids wanted to talk to me about where I was from and why I was out here riding trains, etc. lol

Uhh… no view out of the front cab on this train, I guess. Gotta have space for this huge thing, whatever it is.

Pictured: An active volcano.

When I got to Karuizawa, the awesome Rokumon sightseeing train was there waiting on the platform! For anyone familiar with Eiji Mitooka, it’s quite obviously designed by him, which means there’s a good chance it has a fancy wooden interior too. He’s JR Kyushu’s industrial design consultant (more on that in my next post!) but I guess works over in Central Japan too sometimes.

THERE WAS A BALL PIT. ON THE TRAIN. Monochrome. Ballpit. On a train.

Wow it’s like that one mediocre San Fermin album after they fell off.

I liked how much wood was used in the station structure, too, and how outdoors it was. The town’s known for having a comparatively cool climate in summer.

The elevated station building was cool! Joint between JR (shinkansen-only) and Shinano Railway.

This place looks SO MUCH LIKE THE US MIDWEST. It was really uncanny.

They even had roundabouts. Multiple roundabouts, in fact. wtf.

At a friend’s suggestion, I went to take a quick look at Kumoba Pond before rushing back to catch my train. I was slightly out of breath by the time I got here, but the pond itself was nice and tranquil!

What I didn’t realize (again!) was that I was by yet another prefectural border! Wow, vocab words you learn really do exhibit the frequency illusion, huh? Anyway, it would’ve been 20 minutes there, and another 20 back, so I definitely wouldn’t have had time to go… but I got so close to seeing two of those this trip! I really did, unintentionally, traverse the full length of Nagano, I feel.

Here’s Obasute Station again, this time at night on my way home via the well-trodden Shinonoi and Chuo Lines. I’ve seen it in quite a few different lights and weather conditions now, between this year and last!

I had to take the limited express (also named Shinano… as if enough things this trip haven’t been named that) partway back, starting at Shiojiri, in order to make the last local train home, but got off to get some dinner before then. Yes, my camera is smudged and it shows up especially a lot at night, don’t @ me.

The ramen place (only thing close to the station and open) had Yotsuba&! available to read! Also two fun facts about Shiojiri: 1) the station name means ‘salt butt’, and 2) it has the world’s only platform vineyard in Japan, which I somehow only learned recently and have never seen despite being there quite a few times, so next time I’ll poke around even more.