This weekend I was back in Niigata taking photos. This time Tod came with me and we decided to take the train instead of the gallery’s “staff bus” that leaves at an ungody hour from the gallery across town.
So I checked the very handy Jorudan Norikae site and typed in Tokyo to Matsudai in Japanese. I got our route, the time and cost and we set out with plans to arrive at 12:13 in time for my 1:00 shoot.
At 12:11, we realised something was amiss. “Next stop, Matsushiro. Matsushiro, next.”
Huh?! MatsuSHIRO??
bus stop at Matsushiro station
Matsudai and Matsushiro have the exact same kanji – 松代. Since that can be confusing, my Matsudai uses hiragana for its station name. まつだい. I didn’t know this, since last trip I didn’t go anywhere near the station.
Accept no substitutes. This is Matsudai
I know in a vague way that Matsudai is not too far from the Nagano-Niigata border, so it seemed reasonable that we’d go up towards Nagano, then get a local train from there. But as it turns out, we should have been on a different Shinkansen line altogether, taking a different set of two local trains.
The long way around. Click for larger view.
Hanako assures me that I am the only person in Japan who could have made this mistake, but in my defense the towns have very similar details if you don’t check the details or look at a map. If someone said to you “it’s about 200 km, takes 2 1/2 hours and costs around 7,000 yen” you’d be hard pressed to know which was correct:
| Matsudai まつだい | Matsushiro 松代 | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | 7,120 yen | 7,060 yen |
| Travel Time | 2:27 | 2:37 |
| Train 1 | Shinkansen (199 km) | Shinkansen (189 km) |
| Train 2 | Joetsu (17 km) | Shinano Tetsudo (20 km) |
| Train 3 | HokuHoku (30 km) | Nagano Dentetsu (9 km) |
It took almost 4 hours to get from Matsushiro to Matsudai by bus and local trains, so I missed the 1 o’clock shoot and showed up amidst the 3 pm appointment. But I made up for it by taking 380 pictures on Sunday, so it turned out OK.
