I now have in my possession a rail pass that gives me unlimited travel on certain rail routes within the mountain region of Japan and I was excited to take advantage of this pass to explore some of the places that weren’t typical stops on Japanese itineraries.  My first stop was Fukai followed by Kanazawa.  I left Kyoto in the morning on the Thunderbird express train, which would take me to Fukui and from there I would board another small train about 45 minutes into the mountains.  I then had to transfer to a bus which would take me to the Fukui prefecture dinosaur museum.  This is one of the most prominent places in Japan where fossils have been discovered and there are actually 4 species that are unique to this region.

I toured the museum and there was a lot of information about fossils found throughout the USA and Canada, but there was a section specific to Japanese species which was really cool.  The most famous of these being the Fukui Raptor which is a slightly different variant of the velociraptor.

They also have the Fukuisaurus which is a herbivore similar to the iguanadon, the Fukuititan which is similar to the bronciosaurus but still fairly incomplete from a skeleton perspective.  This region of the country is where the majority of dinosaur related discoveries have been made in the country and is thus the reason for locating the museum in this area.

I got a postcard at the gift shop, as well as a pressed penny, then headed back to the train station, as there was almost nothing else in the area besides the museum.  I jumped back on the small single track train and headed back to Fukui, where I could catch another train to Kanazawa.

The next train to Kanazawa was in a little bit of time and I saw on google maps that there was a castle in town and so I went on a mini adventure walk to check it out.  Turns out the castle is actually the castle ruins of the once formidable castle, but was still cool.  They had a little museum you could take a look at and they had restored the castle bridge and gate, which is where the museum was.

After wandering a bit, I headed back to the train station, which showed just how much this town loves dinosaurs.

There was also a drink stand in the train station that had some beers brewed nearby, so I had to grab one before boarding my train.

After that, I jumped on a train and was off to Kanazawa which was my destination for the evening.