Niigata to Yamagata

Regrettably I didn't take pictures in Niigata - between reading Captain Underpants,  catching zarigani and trying to work out how to reply to emails on Lily's i-pad. there wasn't a whole lot of time. Zarigani catching seems like a quintessential Japanese summer childhood experience.  Wikipedia's entry says that they are sensitive to water quality.... I am not sure how true this is - there was no way we were eating anything that came out of that water - it was  basically a storm water canal..  Most of the zarigani that we caught we tossed back.  The others became temporary pets that were going to be returned in a few days time.
From Niigata I took the train into inland Yamagata, rather than the more conventional coast line.  Services are infrequent - in some places 4 a day making it difficult to get out and look around anywhere that was not already a terminal station.
The countryside is very pretty in the mountains - more so I imagine once the leaves start turning colour. The windows of the train were in need of a polish, and photos haven't done it justice.  I passed through Oguni, where one of Hiro's uni friends lives, they get upwards of 3 metres of snow there in the winter...

The mountains have lots of hydroelectricity.

One track trainlines

Yonezawa station

Covered cultivation on the hills around Yamagata

Yamagata walking map at the station

An impressively bubble economy building next to
Yamagata railway station

The bubble economy building has a hands on science museum there that includes
wind up dynamos to show the amount of energy used
to power different kinds of lights.  LED requires minimal effort.
The long life ones a lot more.

Yamagata

Shinjo - I have already been to Shinjo so took a
train a few stops north to Mamurogawa