Golden week, and trip for Odin
Yesterday began the second half of my Golden Week.
I had gone to the movies on Friday, but wasn't feeling upto heading out on Saturday. A couple of friends had asked if anyone had a place they could crash, so I'd offered for them to stay here. I met them at the train station and we talked for a while then finally decided to head to sleep. Sunday we went to the local Don Quiote and out for dinner, but didn't do much else because it was super windy then it rained. I had to work Monday, and they headed into Tokyo. They got back around 8, and we just chilled and they introduced me to a new show "Raising Hope". If you haven't watched it, do so. It's pretty funny.
Yesterday we let people know that we were heading into Omiya for lunch and that anyone who wanted to join was welcome. We met up with a couple people before lunch and a couple after. We decided that we'd go see the train museum. It was a little expensive at 1000 yen (about 11 dollars) but I think it was worth it. We wandered around seeing all the old train cars, collecting stamps and entertaining people as we went.
Outside the museum was some large train wheels and undercarrages from some trains
The tiles in the floor were set up to look like train schedules
To get in you could either use your travel card (Suica) or buy a ticket. Since I didn't have enough money on my suica I bought the card, which looked like a travel card itself, and worked the same way to get into the museum. You just placed the card over a specific spot on the gate, and it opened.
Right as we went in there was a set up that looked like it came from a parade. A train float, as it were.
Things started off with a huge black train, which was hard to photograph as the lighting was dark too.
At first I thought the guy on top was real, but he was only a mannequin
Some models of some of the early trains...two horsepower
You even got to go into some of the trains
In this one, the heater was an actual stove
This train was on a turntable, which actually turned every day at 12:00 and 15:00. Unfortunately it was already past 15:00 when we got there, so we missed it.
The geeky engineer in me loved the cut-out engine
And you could even go under some of the trains to see the workings from below
There were some old sleeper cars, with 3 bunks per side and straps to keep you in your bunk through the night.
There were even a bunch of cars from the old Imperial train, with floorplans.
And pictures of the inside, since it was behind a plastic wall, and you couldn't really see inside
We went into the section on the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) and sat down in some seats, as we were talking, we noticed that a little boy in the front was 'spying' on us, so one of my friends decided that he needed to be spied on too.
When we left the train, through the back, he followed us. His mom had been standing just outside the doorway and was laughing at him laughing with us but she didn't see him get up. We saw he was following, saw mom had realized he'd walked away, and pointed him out to her, and vice versa. He started to head towards her, but there was a set of stairs that went the wrong way, so we were all.. "no no not that way" and shifted him to the ramp. We said goodbye to our new little friend and headed upstairs to see what was up there.
Got a great view of the trains below, including the one on the turntable.
There was an amazing stained glass window that was sort of about trains:
We checked out the gift shop and headed back downstairs as we only had a little time before some people had to head out, and we wanted to hit the Krispy Kreme at the station. But before we left we had to get some pictures in front of the big train outside. The museum even had a volunteer standing outside to take the pictures. We got in line and watched group after group of japanese people stand nicely and smile for the picture, but we had other ideas:
Which got laughs from the volunteer and the people waiting behind us, but no one followed our lead.
We got back to the station, got our donuts and said goodbye to some of the group. The 4 of us who were left went off in search of cheaper donuts and dinner. Then we headed to a game center to do purikura. What is purikura you ask? First you take some pictures like a standard photobooth, but the computer makes you cuter, with larger eyes, and lighter skin (if you want it) Then you add stuff to the pictures you like best. Here was our result
We then headed back to the station, and headed home.
All in all, an awesome day.
I had gone to the movies on Friday, but wasn't feeling upto heading out on Saturday. A couple of friends had asked if anyone had a place they could crash, so I'd offered for them to stay here. I met them at the train station and we talked for a while then finally decided to head to sleep. Sunday we went to the local Don Quiote and out for dinner, but didn't do much else because it was super windy then it rained. I had to work Monday, and they headed into Tokyo. They got back around 8, and we just chilled and they introduced me to a new show "Raising Hope". If you haven't watched it, do so. It's pretty funny.
Yesterday we let people know that we were heading into Omiya for lunch and that anyone who wanted to join was welcome. We met up with a couple people before lunch and a couple after. We decided that we'd go see the train museum. It was a little expensive at 1000 yen (about 11 dollars) but I think it was worth it. We wandered around seeing all the old train cars, collecting stamps and entertaining people as we went.
Outside the museum was some large train wheels and undercarrages from some trains
The tiles in the floor were set up to look like train schedules
To get in you could either use your travel card (Suica) or buy a ticket. Since I didn't have enough money on my suica I bought the card, which looked like a travel card itself, and worked the same way to get into the museum. You just placed the card over a specific spot on the gate, and it opened.
Right as we went in there was a set up that looked like it came from a parade. A train float, as it were.
Things started off with a huge black train, which was hard to photograph as the lighting was dark too.
At first I thought the guy on top was real, but he was only a mannequin
Some models of some of the early trains...two horsepower
You even got to go into some of the trains
In this one, the heater was an actual stove
This train was on a turntable, which actually turned every day at 12:00 and 15:00. Unfortunately it was already past 15:00 when we got there, so we missed it.
The geeky engineer in me loved the cut-out engine
And you could even go under some of the trains to see the workings from below
There were some old sleeper cars, with 3 bunks per side and straps to keep you in your bunk through the night.
There were even a bunch of cars from the old Imperial train, with floorplans.
And pictures of the inside, since it was behind a plastic wall, and you couldn't really see inside
We went into the section on the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) and sat down in some seats, as we were talking, we noticed that a little boy in the front was 'spying' on us, so one of my friends decided that he needed to be spied on too.
When we left the train, through the back, he followed us. His mom had been standing just outside the doorway and was laughing at him laughing with us but she didn't see him get up. We saw he was following, saw mom had realized he'd walked away, and pointed him out to her, and vice versa. He started to head towards her, but there was a set of stairs that went the wrong way, so we were all.. "no no not that way" and shifted him to the ramp. We said goodbye to our new little friend and headed upstairs to see what was up there.
Got a great view of the trains below, including the one on the turntable.
There was an amazing stained glass window that was sort of about trains:
We checked out the gift shop and headed back downstairs as we only had a little time before some people had to head out, and we wanted to hit the Krispy Kreme at the station. But before we left we had to get some pictures in front of the big train outside. The museum even had a volunteer standing outside to take the pictures. We got in line and watched group after group of japanese people stand nicely and smile for the picture, but we had other ideas:
Which got laughs from the volunteer and the people waiting behind us, but no one followed our lead.
We got back to the station, got our donuts and said goodbye to some of the group. The 4 of us who were left went off in search of cheaper donuts and dinner. Then we headed to a game center to do purikura. What is purikura you ask? First you take some pictures like a standard photobooth, but the computer makes you cuter, with larger eyes, and lighter skin (if you want it) Then you add stuff to the pictures you like best. Here was our result
We then headed back to the station, and headed home.
All in all, an awesome day.