We walked to Asakusa station, but on the Ginza subway line. We paid the fare and went to Ueno station where we got on the JR Yamanote line, my favourite train line ever, to Tokyo Station. At Tokyo station we found the JR railway cafe to exchange our JR pass vouchers to our JR passes. We took a number from the machine and waited a few minutes for a lady to help us. The JR are not as elaborate now which is nice. The lady also booked us tickets to Tono.

They had difficulty understanding what “Tono” was, I guess because not many tourists go there, but I had screen grabs of the route and times, so it was no problem. We then walked around Tokyo Station until 12:36 when our shinkansen left. We bought some bento at a shop: tempura and unagi and onigiri as well as coffee and super cute sake bottles we kept to use as glasses at home (one is a panda glass and one is a duck). We headed to our platform and boarded at 12:34, moments before the train left. We had reserved seats and sat beside a man most of the way. We ate our bentos and had our beverages. The shinkansen took 186 minutes and arrived in Shin-Hanamachi to change to the Kamaishi line to Tono.

The train to Tono took 54 minutes and we boarded just as the sun was coming down over the beautiful crisp snowy fields. We arrived in Tono at exactly 5pm and got some Tono stamps in our books. We then searched for a store to get food, but failed. Next we tried to get a cab but failed. Eventually we got help from the tourist office and an adorable man tried to flag down so many cabs before calling for us (30 minutes later). At about 6:30 pm we finally got into a cab and tried to express where we were going. Eventually we conveyed the spot and we drove to the ryokan 10 minutes away (but a 2 hour walk through the mountains). The cab cost 3210 Yen or roughly $35 Canadian.

We checked into our hotel “Takamuro Suikoen”. The lady used a translation app to speak to us, but it was the biggest language barrier we have had in Japan. Our room was very traditional and nice with tatami mats with kappa on them, and futon beds. We had some welcome tea and snacks we bought at the hotel shop, a red bean sweet , wasabi crackers and chips as we drank our sake.