Japan Tour 2025: Day 9 The long train to Fukui

 

By the numbers

1 missed train

20,930 steps

16.82 kms

Level of Chaos: Missing trains

The day started off without any problem as there was breakfast, but with a small comedy session from the cooks. I took the lid off the Miso soup and the lady got a shock it was bubbling away as it should have been just heating. I was going to eat and run as I had a train to catch in Kyoto station.

 

Deep Fried Pork with rice and hashed beef sauce

I didn’t think of it at the time, but I should have put all the pickets for the one way part of my journey into the ticket machine. It never beeped at me when I only inserted the fare ticket and went on with my life. I had a little bit of a wait for the train and once it did arrive, I had the front car of the train, but no one moved and the driver who had his head out the window closed the door. I realised my mistake and showed him my reserved seat ticket and he let me on. It was then I realised I had lost my fare ticket and I was looking in all pockets and the only thing I could think of was it fell out at the station. Then I also realised I was meant to have a limited express ticket. I soon found my fare ticket hidden in my back pocket. Crisis averted or so I thought. I thought to play dumb with the tickets and asked when I got to the transfer gate at Tsuruga station and asked them about the ticket and they sent me to the JR office, who explained I needed all tickets. They go in all at once, but I started doing them individually as a crazed rail employee told me I could put them in at once. I don’t think its his first rodeo. I ran up the travelator and onto the train.

 

The inside of the museum

What I thought was my train was a bunch of cleaners doing their jobs. They looked at me and I looked at them. One said they were cleaning and it was then I realised I had missed my train by a minute and jumped on the wrong one. I had the option of getting the next one, but it would be in a non reserved seat and it was half hour later. Turns out it was the same train I had jumped on. It did stop at Fukui, where I got off and the machine sucked in all my tickets. I did see all the dinosaur stuff in the train station, but I was looking for where I could get the train to the museum as it was an hour away. I soon found I had to walk out of the main station and an offshoot station connected to the main station. I tapped my card and got the train 5 mins later and it was one car. I was happy to see the changing countryside and near to the station at the end of the line the ticket collector asked me if I was going to the museum and I said yes. She offered me a day pass for the train and the bus. It was a paper ticket and I wasn’t expecting anyone to ask me about my plans as she made me jump when she spoke. She even gave me a timetable for both. She even sorted out my card too. I did find a stamp at the station.

 

It was around a 5 min wait for the bus as it was the direct route to the museum that you could see in the distance. I think it would have been another walk on side streets to the museum and a little too hard this time around. Once we arrived I went inside and had to find my ticket for the museum. I found food first and then went inside. I didn’t want to get hungry while wandering the museum. The museum told the story about the changes in the earths crust and the different layers of rocks and also about dinosaurs, which was what I was there for. The usual fossilised finds of dinosaurs in Europe and the US like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops and so on including the Muttaburrasaurus. I spent several hours looking around though most of the info was in Japanese, there was some including the names of the dinosaurs that were in English. There were areas especially the Fukui area where dinosaurs were being found along with other remains like turtles. There were several sites that scientists were working on and there were even dinosaurs in Thailand as well. Japan did have their own completely new dinosaurs of their own too.. It was starting to get late in the afternoon and I wanted to be back at Fukui without any issues or trying to rush for the train.

 

By the time I got back to Fukui, I had around 2 hours before I needed to catch the train back to Kyoto. I went looking around the outside of the station for dinosaurs and there were several that were moving and making sounds. Nearby there was something called Fukui castle ruins and I wanted to have a look. One of the info panels spoke of how at one stage they changed the course of a river so that they could have a moat. Turns out that there are still walls and a moat, but there are buildings on what was once a castle. I later realised these were government buildings including the headquarters of the Fukui police. It explains why a security guard came looking for me to see what I was doing and then just left without a word. I did a lap of the outside of the castle and there were information points about the area and even a monument to an earthquake in the 90s. I had to give the good old Google translate a work out on some of the panels as there was no English. It was the same with another nearby castle ruin that was a dig site and the location of a temple. Its always interesting to see something telling you how they made their walls and what stone was used. This time when I caught the train I had no issues and caught each one how it should have happened earlier in the morning. The whole reason I set the train for just after 7pm was so I could explore Fukui without having to rush and that just means I end up back in Kyoto closer to 9pm, but I would say worth it.