I visited the Michinooku Art Festival “Yamagata Biennale” held in 2018.
This time I will focus on introducing the tour I actually purchased, so that you can enjoy the destination affordably and easily.
Eki-net JR Tour
For those heading to Yamagata from the Kanto region, the shinkansen is essentially the only choice. Yamagata Airport is far from the city center, and because JAL has a monopoly on the route with correspondingly high fares, few good-value tours were available (this may depend on the season, so please check case by case). *From Yamagata Airport to Yamagata Station takes 35 minutes by bus, at 980 yen.
For the shinkansen, I recommend the tour packages sold by JR East. You can purchase a round-trip reserved shinkansen seat with a specified time, and there are multiple hotel options to choose from. This time, at one week before the tour date, I was able to reserve a station-adjacent hotel for a night before a public holiday. The price — including the round-trip shinkansen fare and hotel accommodation — was just “24,000 yen (tax included)”! It was an affordable trip.
Yamagata Station West Exit Washington Hotel
When you exit the ticket gates at JR Yamagata Station, there is a Yamagata Biennale information desk right in front of you. Pick up a brochure here. It includes detailed festival information along with the loop bus timetable and stamp-rally sheet.
Walking toward the west exit — the opposite side from the bustling east exit — you can see a high-rise building on your right. This is the Yamagata Station West Exit Washington Hotel. It’s connected to the hotel via a covered walkway that keeps you out of the rain.
Taking the elevator up to the 24th floor, a beautiful view unfolds.
Continuing down the corridor, you arrive at the hotel front desk. As there was time before check-in, I had them hold my luggage and headed straight to the festival venue.
Check-in was from 2:00 p.m.
To reach the guest rooms, you take a connecting elevator next to the front desk and descend to rooms on floors 19 through 21.
Check-out was at 10:00 a.m. The next day too, they held my luggage before I left, and I headed to the festival venue again.
Timing my return to catch the shinkansen, I picked up my luggage and made my way home without any trouble.
Since the hotel is directly connected to the station, I could leave my luggage there while I moved around. And being so close to the station, I could act efficiently without wasting time.
