2020.11/2 Niigata Day 1, Yuzawa Grand Hotel

     After a long and deep consideration, I decide to bring back my old habit of writing travel diary.

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     As some of you might know, my day off is Tuesday and Wednesday. With WFH, the trip started from home on Monday's night has become my new travel pattern. (Also thanks to Michelle who always uses her annual holidays for me)

     After clocking out, we took train to Omiya station (大宮駅), starting our 4-days trip in Niigata (新潟). From Omiya, we rode on the 2-story Shinkansen, Max Toki (MAXとき) to Echigo-Yuzawa station (越後湯沢駅). 

     Max Toki was originally planned to be withdrawn entirely before the  end of 2020. However, the flood water brought by Typhoon Hagibis on November of 2019 inundated many trains of Hokuriku Shinkansen. They had no choice but keep these old trains in service. I think my first time to take 2-story Shinkansen was at 2005. I thought this 2-story Shinkansen would be there forever... never thought they would be out of service someday. Anywhere I am kind of glad to know its retirement would be postponed. Guess there will still be many trips with Max train.

      Also, there is actually a new limited railway pass called JR EAST Welcome Rail Pass 2020 recently, allowing foreign people to travel on all JR East trains unlimitedly in three days. Usage area route map is as below.

     The best part is that, it is even available to foreign people who doesn't hold temporary visa!

     Unfortunately it was a little bit late for us to know this new railway pass coming out, we had already planned everything up and ordered all the shinkansen tickets on Eki Net (えきねっと). However, thanks to "Go To" Campaign, the tourism promoting campaign which was often criticized to make the epidemic worse, I booked almost every shinkansen ticket with half price. Yes, the ticket to hell is always come with good intentions.

　　The chicken bento I bought.

　　Fukagawa-meshi (深川めし) bought by Michelle, with lots of clams and leeks topped on it. Thankfully I didn't choose it.

     At 9 pm we arrived at Echigo-Yuzawa station. Comparing to Tokyo, apparent temperature was not colder, and rain still went on as in Tokyo. For this kind of cold rainy weather, I bought oden in 7-Eleven before entering hotel. I think something just never changes. No matter you are in Japan or in Taiwan, 26 years old or 15 years old, high school student or grown-up, your body will be always craving for oden in convenient store.

     For hotel, we booked Yuzawa Grand Hotel. From Google Map, the hotel seems to be very close to the station, but you couldn't see a steep road between hotel and station. But since the place we were heading for was an onsen ryokan, it was not so annoying to walk the steep road with luggage in the rainy night.

　　There is aquarium in the lobby.

　　Our room was located at 6th floor of East Hall.

     So the first day of trip was just like this. Next day we would take Genbi Shinkansen (現美新幹線) to Niigata.