Niigata and a ridiculous amount of travel

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So to get to my next destination of Niigata it involved a ridiculous amount of transport and a journey that would turn out to take 3 trains and about 6 hours to complete.
Over the course of this journey I had the realisation that it was the start of Golden Week (a major Japanese public holiday) and that the world and his wife would be travelling. This was especially true when getting onto the unreserved car of the shinkansen which was standing room only. Learning from this and not wanting to spend my 3rd train journey stood up for the next 2 hours I decided to go and reserve a seat which unfortunately meant that I would have to wait 2 hours for a train. So I ended up having an unscheduled stop over in Omiya,
With not a massive amount of time to kill and not knowing anything about the area I decided to head towards the 'open space' which I assumed would be a park of some sort.
So there I was sat on a bench watching the world go by when I noticed a bicycle pull up beside me, it's rider proceeded to sit beside me and start getting things out of her bag.
She then started chatting away to me in Japanese was met with blank stares and I thought this would put an end to it but no..
She then got out a piece of paper with her spiel written in English which still didn't make clear really what she wanted to tell me- I ended up concluding that it was something to do with religion.
When I told her I was English (after she assumed I was American) she got excited and started talking enthusiastically about the Royal Wedding (nope no escape here from it either). Eventually she left and I was still left wondering what it was all about.
I returned to the station and continued my journey to the port city of Niigata through some beautiful and slightly snowy landscapes.

Seen as though I was only visiting here for a day I took a walk along the banks of the Shinano-gawa and towards Hakusan-koen which is a small park containing a shrine to the local god of marriage.
Wandering around the lotus pond I was stopped by an elderly man who asked me if I was walking alone when I understood his opening gambit he obviously thought my language capabilities were a damn sight better than they actually are and decided to chat away to me. Again my blank clueless stare came into full play..
I kept on meeting this guy at several times during my walk round the park and each time he would try to engage me in conversation (and fail miserably at it) which left me feeling really guilty as I hoped he realised I was just clueless and not rude.
The weather took a turn for the worst so I bid a hasty retreat back to the hotel to await the arrival of my travel companion and watch some TV- particular favourites being a drama about a blind teacher who participates in sports and a drama about a woman and man who fluctuate between their normal weight and twice their size several times during the episode.

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