Checking Black Queen in the handy Jancis Robinson reference tome revealed it is a Japanese variety, and showing the details demonstrated that Hughesy's birthday present (a $50 iTunes voucher) had been put to god use. Score one for diplomacy in the course of killing time.
With the train due to leave at 10:07, we wandered out just before ten, and I managed to create a little drama on the escalator heading down to the platform as an attempt to coordinate feet, steps, hands and red suitcases sent me sprawling. I'm still not sure exactly how I managed it, but when it happened it seemed to take place in slow motion.
The train we boarded was, effectively, the rest of the service that had brought us up to Matsumoto from Nagano, and we took in some rather spectacular views as we completed the route.
It was only around thirteen months since we'd done the trip in the opposite direction, but an early onset of winter had delivered impressive displays of snow on the highest peaks, and a dandruff-like sprinkling lower down.
From Nagano, we were back on a Shinkansen line that would take you into Tokyo if you were going that far, which of course, we weren't. Yet.
We'd also done the bottom part of this leg travelling between Sendai and Kurobe on our last trip, and we'd disembarked to change trains at Echigo-Yuzawa. There were plenty of people who did the same this time around since the stop represents the intersection of the line to Tokyo and another that will deliver you to Toyama, Kanazawa and points of internet in between. That might change when the Kanazawa Shinkansen line commences operation in 2015.
We changed trains a little further along, once again on a Shinkansen line that took us up to Niigata, higher up the west Sea of Japan Coast, one of the five ports opened for international trade in the 1858 Treaty, though shallow water in the port delayed the actual opening until 1869. It has also served as a base for salmon fishermen who roamed as far north as the Kamchatka Peninsula and was one of four cities picked as targets for the atomic bomb. Weather conditions and its distance from the bomber bases in the Marianas meant it was removed from the list of targets. Nagasaki was bombed instead.
Dominated by the steep snow-capped Echigo Mountain Range, Niigata Prefecture is liberally sprinkled with ski and onsen resorts and hot springs and is home to many sake breweries due to the availability of high quality rice and clear, fresh water.