I had picked Aizu-Wakamatsu as my next destination – from Niigata that meant, I had to take the slow train (actually two slow trains and a connection that only worked as the second train was as delayed as the first). The trip took more than three hours (with more than 25 stops), felt super-ineffective (by car this would have been half the time) – but was relaxing and enjoyable with great landscape all around.

After arrival I dropped my stuff in the hostel, had a quick lunch (a local “soul food” dish that reminded me of spaghetti bolognese), to then continue for the castle (destroyed back in the 1860s, rebuild in concrete a good 100 years later), get a view over town and – in an old samurai villa – introduced to samurai culture.

Tea Houas Feudal