Well, some of you might wonder, “Where on Japan is Takasaki City? Where is Gunma Prefecture?”. Or, you would rather ask, “What is there to be found in Takasaki?”
Takasaki is one of two big cities in Gunma Prefecture, and more populous than the capital of the prefecture itself — Maebashi city. It is located around 100 km north of Tokyo, or 80 km north of Saitama city. Takasaki station can be reached using JR Takasaki line, or Nagano Shinkansen. Both lines are accessible in Ueno station (Tokyo) or Omiya station (Saitama). From Omiya, by using Takasaki line it will take you between one hour to one hour and a half depending on which train you are using. By using Shinkansen, it will cost you less than an hour, but with ticket price doubled. That’s why I preferred to ride on Takasaki line for the journey I did last Tuesday.
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 has been stated as a national holiday. The calendar says it was Culture Day. Ah, whatever. I do not care much about it as long as it is a national holiday where I can take my day off. 😀 Actually, on that day I was planning to go early in the morning around 8 o’clock so that I will have much more time for photo hunting around Takasaki and Tomioka city, which is nearby. But alas! I woke up at 10 o’clock. What a bad habit I have. Eventually, I departed at around 11 from Kita Urawa station, the nearest station from my apartment.
It’s nearly one o’clock in the afternoon, and finally I arrived at Takasaki station. The temperature dropped to 12 degree Celcius on that day even when it was and is still autumn. FYI, winter officially starts from December up to end of February. The first thing I did after leaving the station is taking some photographs, and then going to the nearest convenience store (Lawson) to buy my brunch (I hadn’t had my breakfast and lunch), i.e. Chinese Niku-man (or in Indonesian Chinese Language: Bakpao).
While eating my lunch, I walked southward, and realised that I was getting out of the city into the rural area, and that was not my goal. Therefore I walked back northward, taking photographs as I walked downtown. It was very quiet, much more quiet than Saitama, which in turn is very much more quiet than Tokyo. Just imagine, a city with very few people (compared to Indonesian big cities which are very crowded). After walking with no clear goal, eventually I found a park with trees with leaves colour getting red. There I met a cat just as you can see on the picture below. He doesn’t even try to avoid me when I approached him to take some photos. And after leaving the park, I went to the historic part of the city — the remains of Takasaki Castle.
Four o’clock in the afternoon. The sun sets earlier in autumn and winter, thus it started to get dark. Time to go home! And as I walked the road to the station, I saw a Korean Restaurant at one corner of crossroad in front of the station. “My last photograph”, thought I.
The Diary of an Adventurer in the Far East 