Perhaps the easiest mistake to make on the (otherwise relatively easy to use) Japanese rail system is to get on a train that's on the right line, but going in the wrong direction. If you don't know if the stop you need to get to is on the way to stop X, where X is generally announced and sometimes is written on the side of the train, you don't know whether to get on that train or not. If the particular train happens to have an easily-accessible map of the stops inside, you can try to lunge into the train real quick to check it out, and lunge back out if your destination isn't on the way to stop X (assuming you successfully ascertained what stop X is). I don't understand why they don't have this map displayed somewhere on the platform. Instead, they just have a timetable, which is useless to you if you can't read kanji.

In any case, on our way from Yokohama to Maihama (and the Tokyo Disney Resort), Setsuko and I screwed up and got on the right train in the wrong direction. We stupidly didn't notice this until we'd traveled fairly far into the countryside. We should have double-checked that line map on the train, but we thought there was no need because the platform where we got on the train was labeled in a confusing fashion that implied that both sides of the platform had trains going towards Tokyo.

We finally realized our mistake and hopped off the train in Kouzu, a little seaside town. It was quite a wait until the next train in the other direction was to arrive, so I spent the time taking some photos. This is the platform, and is fairly typical for a small, outdoor JR platform.