- Ueno to Takasaki
- Takasaki Station
- Car Navigation Maps
- Shorinzan Daruma Temple
- Costco Maebashi
- Takizawakan Ryokan & Hitou Association
This is a series of blog posts chronicling my Gunma and Nagano travel in 2025:
- Day 1: Haneda Airport, Ueno
- Day 1: Takasaki, Maebashi
- Day 2: Mount Akagi, Mount Haruna
Ueno to Takasaki §
At Ueno Station, after getting ekiben and drink, I went down to the platform to wait for my scheduled shinkansen. From the schedule board, I noticed there were one departure prior to mine, a chance to capture arrival of E7/W7 series shinkansen. I booked a seat in car 10 which is not far off from car 12 which is the train head when departing from Tokyo, but tail end when heading to Tokyo direction. When booking a seat, I noticed car 6 and 7 are pretty popular due to proximity to the platform entry or exit.
While taking a video of train arrival, I inadvertently crossed the yellow line to rest my hand on the platform barrier for more stable video and got whistled at by the platform attendant. The braking noise was quite loud with a sharp screeching sound, made louder due to being underground in contrast to open-air shinkansen platform of the Tokyo Station.
The travel from Ueno Station to Takasaki Station took only 42 minutes, so as soon as I sat down, I immediately devoured the ekiben. The food was nothing to write home about, there are definitely more delectable choices from Tokyo Station, so I didn’t much expect much. While the train made a few stops along the way, I noticed there was always a loud thud prior to a stop which I think is the sound of braking mechanism being initiated? The sound is not something I associated with a smooth-riding shikansen, at least it wasn’t that obvious when I last rode the E5/H5 series of Tōhoku Shinkansen. Though unpleasant, at least it can be an indicator that the train is stopping, since accelerating and decelerating are hardly perceptible.
As I was sipping the buckwheat tea, I heard the arrival announcement mamonaku… (間もなく…). I took the last gulp and started to pack up. Then came the loud thud and I went to collect my luggage and waited at the entrance area.
Once the train came to a full stop, since it only stopped for 2 minutes, I disembarked swiftly so that next passangers can alight.
Takasaki Station §
There was a drizzle and the air felt cooler than Tokyo, as expected after escaping the concrete jungle. Instead of hurrying to the exit, I lingered a bit at the terminal to capture a glimpse of the departing shinkansen. I then reoriented myself on the direction; direction of arrival was north and the exit I needed to go was the East Exit, so I walked to the right. As I walked down from the terminal, I saw teddy-bear-size Gunma-chan and Daruma doll, the best indications that I had arrived at Gunma prefecture.
Once at the East Exit, I advised my partner of the pickup area then went to the Nissan car rental which was 5-minute walk away. At the car rental place, since I had already did online check-in beforehand, I didn’t have to fill up much form except to sign on them. The staff did explained some mandatory info like emergency telephone numbers.
For this trip, I opted for a hybrid compact car. The places I was travelling had narrow road and I don’t need the space of a bigger car. Hybrid is to save fuel since I was going to drive a lot. I could’ve opted for kei car, which I previously drove during Aomori trip, but I found it was underpowered for mountainous road so I knew it’s not suitable for this trip in the mountainous regions.
While booking for a car rental, I did look at Toyota rental which offered significant discount when booking at least a month earlier. But the discount was only available to members that requires a local address to join.
The staff then showed me around the car (Nissan Note) while I took photos. While showing me the interior, he noted the infotainment system is already in english. That was when I asked about the map code (マップコード), but he couldn’t find it. There was a reddit comment that mentioned the feature might be available in japanese menu only. Alas, still no sign on it. He suggested that I connect to a phone instead and use Apple Carplay/Google Auto. Map Code may have fallen out in favour of smartphone.
I punched in the station name onto the infotainment’s maps app and drove off cautiously. After turning into the station, I used my memory of Street View to find my way to a temporary parking space. There was a passenger pickup lane, but only limited to bus.
After I picked up my partner, I drove to a convenience store with parking. There were plenty surrounding the station, but parking can be limited. After picking up some supplies, I was on the way to Shorinzan Daruma Temple (少林山 達磨寺).
Car Navigation Maps §
Online threads often recommend using the car maps instead of Google Maps. As a precaution, I used both with car maps being the primary. As I was approaching a narrow junction to the temple, I noticed the car maps switched to a zoomed-in top-down view of the junction and its surrounding radius, with highlighted route and current location as a red-dot.
Although Google Maps also zooms in when slowing down, but the car maps offered a much closer view, illuminating exactly which junction to turn in. I find the view is more usable especially when there are junctions right next to each other. I should note this is based on my experience with this particular Nissan rental car, while other models should also share similar infotainment, other brands may not necessarily have this zoomed-in junction feature.
What wasn’t so good though is the search, it’s not sorted by nearest distance. I searched for “lawson” and the first result was more than 300km away located at another prefecture. The latinised/english name of locations could also be different than Google Maps’. Thankfully the car maps could also search using Google Maps API located in separate menu, so I simply searched for the latinised name of the destination as it appears on Google Maps and that worked well. I don’t remember using Plus Codes, maybe I should’ve tried that.
Shorinzan Daruma Temple §
There are numerous daruma temples in Japan, but this is the original. 少林 is read as shào lín in Mandarin, yes, that Shaolin. Daruma is the founder of Shaolin. Instead of martial art show, that temple is known for daruma doll. There were daruma dolls available for purchase in variety of sizes, and also daruma painting experience. Despite being a symbol, likely to be top 5, there wasn’t much visitors, I could count with my limbs. This led to a more peaceful experience, as I seeked from a place of worship to be a refuge from the hustle and bustle of my usual work routine. I didn’t linger long due to the weather and also a check-in time to catch.
Costco Maebashi §
I did have a few hours before the lodging check-in time. The journey to the lodging passed through Maebashi, so I took a small detour to visit a local Costco over there. I brought my Costco card with me and it scanned just fine. Even though Maebashi is smaller than my hometown, it’s a branch that scales with a country with population of more than 100 millions, selling at least twice as many items than my home branch. There were more than 4 models of home/caravan battery while my home branch only got two. Every corner seemed to have one food/drink sample stall that I helped myself with a few, something I hardly see in my home branch for the past few years. The seafood section is stocked to the brim, as expected a country known for seafood, but I noticed salmon is imported from Norway though. Food court obviously sells sushi and other seafood, in addition to the usual sausage bun and pizza. Anyway, I walked out empty-handed, I wanted to buy fruit but I worried I couldn’t finish them in time and taking them in and out of lodging didn’t sound enticing.
It was probably my quickest Costco shoppingvisit. I checked travel time to the lodging again and there was still plenty of time. There was a Uniqlo opposite the Costco. Uniqlo is ubiquitous, but that branch caught our eye. It was a freestanding building, single-story with three-story height, floor-to-ceiling windows, giant logo at each corner, looked more like a car showroom than a clothing shop. We went in, the ceiling did stand out but inventory-wise it didn’t sell more variety than typical branches. We had time but not that much time for shopping so didn’t buy any. At the corner there was a mini cafe, we had a small pastry and machine-dispensed coffee.
Takizawakan Ryokan & Hitou Association §
Takizawakan (滝沢館 homepage maps) is a traditional Japanese inn (ryokan) located at the hills of Mount Akagi. It is a member of Japan Association of Secluded Hot Spring Inns 日本秘湯を守る会, an association founded to promote ryokan especially those that are situated in remote secluded region. The members are made up traditional inn featuring back-to-basic amenities and no-nonsense decor. Those inns are in stark contrast to proliferation of giant hotel chains especially those built during asset bubble era, offering irresistible value proposition thanks to economy of scale, featuring eye-dizzying buffet and unlimited alcohol for less than 15,000 yen.
By becoming a member, those inns can utilise online reservation system offered by the association, without relying on international online travel agency and subject to their recommendation algorithm. The online reservation is as simplistic as the inns, offering no payment processing (stay is reserved after reservation request not payment), with many inns only accept up to 2 months of advanced booking. Instead of collecting points, guests collect stamps at individual inns with 1-night free stay for every 10 stamps collected. I also notice some inns may not necessarily have a homepage, instead solely relying on the association’s website.
During check-in at Takizawakan, while showing us the direction of the hot spring, we were told my partner was the only female guest that day, in case female guests prefer company of other females (owner later asked “怖いか?” (was it scary?) during dinner). After check-in, I took an outdoor hot spring bath albeit with drizzle, which wasn’t that pleasant unlike you like soaking in rain, at least the hot spring cooled down a bit, so I can soak as long as I could with the whole pool by myself. The other male guest only came in after I finished.
After changing into yukata (浴衣), it was time for dinner. While entering dining room, we were reminded the correct way of wearing yukata, right side folds in first then left so left side is outside. Including us, there were only 3 guests that day. There was a good variety of food without being overwhelming, sufficient portion (not a big eater myself) and some featured in-season chestnut.
That’s it for now for this post, my next post will be about my travel to Mount Akagi (赤城山) and Mount Haruna (榛名山).