Tateyama Station

After finishing breakfast at Tateyamakan, we immediately headed to the station to buy tickets. A station staff member with fluent Chinese-accented Japanese asked where we were going, then took us to buy the tickets and reminded us that once we reached Midagahara we needed to register our return time (since the buses come from Murodo and need to reserve seats).

Midagahara

Midagahara is a vast grassland surrounded by mountains, with boardwalks running through it. The trails are split into northern and southern halves by the road, and "most sections" are well maintained. The information board says the outer loop takes about two hours, and walking all the way to Matsuo Pass takes about three. Since we had already booked our return bus and were worried about missing it, we first planned to walk to the roadside and then decide the final route. This section of the trail was in great condition, and walking across the open grassland was very pleasant. After we safely reached the roadside and estimated that we still had plenty of time, we decided to continue on to Matsuo Pass.

The start of the southern trail was just as delightful, but we began to see signs of repairs. As we got closer to Matsuo Pass, the trail conditions worsened and the vegetation grew denser, making it feel like we were about to do some jungle trekking. We moved carefully along the trail while checking the offline map, so it never got to the point of getting lost. However, after going over Matsuo Pass (a small high point), the trail became steep, slippery, and sometimes tilted. Although small strips of gravel had been attached to the boardwalk for better grip and worked quite well, the slanted surface still made every step feel nerve-racking, and Nana even slipped twice.

Midagahara

We got back to the starting point twenty minutes early and waited for the bus. Nana even went to wander around "Tateyama-so" on the other side out of curiosity.

Tateyama Station

Tateyama Station has a souvenir shop that sells sweets unique to the Tateyama area. Nothing really caught our eye—which was fine since they were for other people anyway 🤣. There was also a Montbell shop in the station, but we skipped it due to lack of time.

We bought tickets from Dentetsu-Toyama to "Chigozuka", but we weren't sure if they were valid on every train. After a round of mutual misunderstanding with the station attendant uncle, he led us to the first car and told us to put our tickets and money into the machine when we got off. We told him we'd already bought tickets, but neither side could understand what the other was trying to say 🤣. In the end, we guessed that he thought we were going to Toyama but had mistakenly bought tickets to Chigozuka, so he was teaching us how to board first and settle the fare later. In any case, when we got off, we did have to show our tickets to the conductor and then feed them into the magical ticket-eating machine.

Chigozuka

This was a desolate little station with only a simple shelter, and we had no idea how we were supposed to buy tickets to get on the train—but that was a problem for later. For now, we just pretended everything would work out! The weather was still nice, so we bought some not-very-tasty snacks at a FamilyMart and then walked over to Montbell Village Tateyama.

Montbell Village Tateyama

This was a standalone Montbell store with a café. Just like the Montbell in Kamakura's Grandberry Park. Outside, there was a small climbing wall and a little pond. We browsed seriously until it got dark but didn't buy anything, mainly because we didn't want to carry extra stuff back to Toyama in the rain.

Etchu-Misato Station

By the time we left Montbell, it was already dark and raining quite hard. We slowly walked through the rainy countryside to Etchu-Misato Station. Once we arrived, it was finally time to face the question: how do you board a train at a station with no ticket counter? There were diagrams inside the shelter explaining things, but we still ended up asking the only Japanese kid at the station for help. It turned out that when you board from the rear door, there's a machine that prints out small paper slips; you just pull one out as proof of where you got on (the kid even pointed out the machine to us when we boarded, which really saved us. 😌).

Dentetsu-Toyama Station

When we arrived, we took our slips to the front of the train for the conductor to check. He looked like he was about to get off work and simply pointed us toward the exit. At the exit, there was a counter where we handed our slips and cash to the staff and exited smoothly.

Concept Hotel WAQ