Tickets
The Shinkansen are the high speed “bullet trains” that connect major metropolitan areas of Japan. If you choose the right train, what would be a 6 to 8 hour drive from Tokyo to Kyoto can be covered in a little over 2 hours and cost you around US $100. The ticket machine is the worst automated kiosk I’ve ever encountered. Ever. I’m traveled enough to know that in this case I’m looking to purchase both a fare ticket and a reserved seat (1). I choose the top option:
But then my brain broke at the next screen: Notice at the top where it says “Insert the tickets, commuter passes, or one Suica card”. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was:
Why are you asking for a ticket if I’m trying to buy a ticket! I do have a Suica transit card — I’ve been using it for subways and at 7-Eleven for a week now — but it’s in my mobile wallet on my phone, and there’s no place to tap for that. Friends: I even watched YouTube videos the day before so I would know how to buy tickets from this cursed machine, but they never showed this screen.
I ended up being able to make the machine spit out a physical ticket for me for the 11:31am train, but when I tried to use it on the turnstile of course it blared at me and flashed a red error message. I needed two tickets, one for the fare and one for the seat. For that I had to go around the corner and down this hall and did I mention this is happening at 11:25am and I’ve paid for a ticket on the 11:31am train? Fortunately the customer service line is moving (relatively) fast. The agent immediately recognizes what has happened, asks some version of “mobile card?”, I confirm yes, and they scan my mobile pass a few times for reasons that are opaque to me and then hand me two physical tickets. I’m to put these two tickets one on top of the other when I enter the turnstile.
From what I can gather, if you’ve adopted to use a mobile train pass for your Japan trip, because it’s the year 2024 after all, then the automated kiosks are closed to you. You have to either 1) register and use the SmartEx app to buy your tickets online, 2) buy your physical tickets online and have them hand-delivered to your hotel in a day or two , which this is considered very normal here, 3) get a physical Suica transit card (and possibly load funds on it?), or 4) stand in line to buy physical tickets.
When buying your ticket, be mindful of your luggage(2). Certain seats are designated for those who are traveling with a lot of luggage. If you’re traveling lighter — I had a smaller backpack plus a hiking-sized backpack about the size of a rollaboard — then you should have no problems finding space overhead and won’t need one of the special seats.
Boarding
Travel sites suggest that finding an empty seat won’t be a problem unless it’s a holiday. Still, I opted for a reserved seat in business class, as I wanted to see what that experience was like. When you purchase your seat reservation, you can have the system choose for you, or it can show a seat map and you can choose similar to how you’d buy an airplane ticket. Once you pick, you’ll receive your ticket that says your car and seat number. Head up to the platform and look for the sign that indicates where your car number will be stopping. Oh, and how nice was it that you didn’t have to pass through a security check or get to the station several hours beforehand? Trains run frequently, so make sure you look at the train number! Board the train, stow your things, and settle in.
Services
In the “green car” (business car), they advertise wifi and snack service. To order the snack service you need to use the wifi. The wifi is barely sufficient for connecting to the snacks website, so don’t plan on trying to do any real work that requires wifi. After about 15 minutes of trying and retrying I was able to order some rock hard ice cream and have it delivered to my seat.
There’s another website you can (try to) get to for other services, such as summoning train staff for help: Where can I put my bag? There is litter here. When can I see Mt Fuji? (these were actual choices IIRC). I didn’t use that.
Ride
What can I say? It’s quiet, fast, smooth, and there’s less hassle than going out of the way to an airport, clearing security, waiting an hour for your flight…
Peeing This gets its own section. There are, of course, decent bathrooms onboard the train. Oh and then there’s a tiny room with a urinal, if you just need to go #1. And it has a folding door, like on an airplane. Which is transparent. Not like an airplane. I did my business and it wasn’t a problem, but I hadn’t had an experience like that since Amsterdam back in 2000.
Conclusion
It’s cheaper to fly from Tokyo to Osaka than to take the shinkansen, but once you factor in the overall experience, I’m a fan of the high speed train. (1) - In Europe, I traveled on a Eurail pass, so in some cases I only needed to buy a seat reservation pass and the Eurail app would show a QR code for my ticket. (2) - If you haven’t used one of the services that forward your luggage for you.