Trip Day Seven & Eight: Karuizawa, Harajuku and Night Train to Hokkaido
Filed under: Travel
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 10:07 pm. 4 comments
As usual, the photos and videos are up on flickr.
Day 7: Karuizawa
Day 8: Harajuku
The most interesting part might be the experience of taking a night train from Honshu to Hokkaido.
The cheap seat-only carts (like this one) were filled by mostly tourists, whereas the couchettes (bed carts) were occupied by locals. I had no problem sleeping on the reclined seat, but it got uncomfortably cold at night and I had to wrap myself in pants (didn’t bring a jacket).
How to go to Hokkaido with a JR Pass:
17:56 – 21:00 Tokyo => Hachinohe
21:17 – 22:18 Hachinohe => Aomori
22:45 – 06:07 Aomori => Sapporo
It’s not exactly fun, but that’s the cheapest way to do it since it’s fully covered by the JR Pass. Plus I got to save money on a night of accommodation. Now that I have done it once, I might do it again.
Arriving Sapporo at 6 a.m. was harsh, but I will save that for the next post.
I saw your flckr.
I am leaving for Tokyo next week. Yes I will be heading to Sapporo too , using my JR pass
Just a question if you dont mind: Is it difficult to get a reserved seat? how about an unreserved seat?
thank you
Replied offline.
Hi, night train from Honshu to Hokkaido is free, how about from Hokodate to Tokyo via night train, is this free as well with JR pass ?
I am trying to save some cost on the accomodation since I have the JR pass.