Brian's first trip to Japan

Rollup of Tokyo, Kamakura, and Kyoto

Posted by brian on March 19, 2024 · 43 mins read

Contents

Japan Planning

Where Brian realizes he probably shouldn’t try to YOLO a 12 day trip to Japan

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” — Ferris Bueller

I’m traveling to Japan next Thursday (Feb 1), for 11 days. I’ve never been. This is a solo trip to celebrate a milestone. When I booked the trip last week I was 90% excited and 10% anxious. Today it’s closer to 50/50. I have a hotel in Tokyo for the first two nights to burn off jet lag, but beyond that I have absolutely nothing planned or booked – and that’s starting to weigh on me. I don’t want to marathon tour in an attempt to try to check everything off a list. Instead, I’m envisioning a slower, more reflective trip… with lots of walking and eating.

Some of you have personal experiences in Japan, so I’d love to hear your recommendations, on towns, ryokans, temples, parks, activities, restaurants, whatever! Something you’ve done personally. I see myself home-basing in Kyoto and Tokyo and then making day trips from there, but I’m extremely open to suggestions at this point.

I will be sharing lots of photos and thoughts here once I get to Japan — whether you like it or not! 🙂 

Japan T-minus 3 days

As ready as I’m going to be

As you may know from my previous post, I’m heading to Japan this Thursday for the first half of February. The first flight to Minneapolis is 3 hours and leaves at 6am. There’s around a 2½ hour layover there, and then the second flight to Tokyo-Haneda leaves at 10:30am. That flight is 13½ hours. The Kindle is pre-loaded, and I’ll hope to catch up on some movie-watching. (Ford vs Ferrari, my last airplane movie, was excellent BTW)

Sitting three days out, here’s some of what’s been done:

  • 🏙️ LOTS of cities, towns, and villages researched. In an effort to both keep logistics simpler and to avoid spending too much time on trains, my plan for now is to stay in a place no less than 2 nights, within a ~20 minute walk of the train station, and in an area in-between Tokyo and Kyoto/Osaka. This means there are some places I’d like to visit, such as Koyasan, that I’ll save for another trip.
  • 🏨 Eight nights of lodging booked. As it stands today, I’ll spend the first three nights in the Asakusa area of Tokyo, the next two nights in Kamakura (near Tokyo), and the next three nights in Kyoto. That leaves the last three nights of the trip still open.
  • 🛂 Passport info uploaded, and Japan customs and immigration form already filled out online. This should save time entering Japan. Once in the airport, I think I have a decent idea of how to use the monorail and trains to make it to my hotel.
  • 💳 Suica card purchased. This is what’s known as an “IC card”. You use it for subways and trains (it was first introduced by a train company) but you can also use it for vending machines and at 7-11. The electronic version of this sits in my Apple Wallet, and I just pull out my phone and tap to pay.
  • 📶 eSim card and data plan purchased. Airalo, who I’ve used flawlessly for both Iceland and mainland Europe now, had a 10GB for $9 deal going, which is pretty great.
  • 🚑 Travel medical insurance purchased. It’s $1,000,000 coverage and $0 deductible for like $40. No brainer.
  • 💴 I have some starter cash — ¥10,000 thanks to a kind gift from family friends

Oh, and it came to my attention yesterday that I’ll be in Japan while the Super Bowl is happening. If my math is right, kickoff will be at 8:30am my time. I’ll have to try to find an expat sports pub or something.

As for learning the language, that’s progressing more slowly than I’d hoped. However, the phrases I’m learning from Pimsleur should be immediately applicable:

  • Excuse me / sorry.
  • Good morning / good afternoon.
  • Do you speak English? and I don’t understand Japanese. (these will be clutch, and I feel very comfortable saying these phrases already 🙂)
  • I am not skilled (at speaking Japanese).
  • Sushi, water, rice, green tea.
  • Thank you and Thank you very much.
  • Good weather! and Bad weather!
  • So desu ne (multiple meanings but one is approximately Yeah that’s right
  • See you later

Japan Trip Days 1 and 2

The travel over and jet lag

There is a 14-hour time difference between the US East Coast and Japan. Upon arriving in Japan, I seemed to recover from the time difference pretty quickly, and was in decent shape by day 3 or so. Now that I’m back in the US, I’m struggling a lot more. The night before last I slept from 9pm to 1am and that was it; the evening before that, I didn’t fall asleep until 5am! Wicked. I think it might be under control after last night.

Day 1 - The Trip Over

The first flight left Raleigh (RDU) at 6 am, which is super not my favorite. I never sleep well before an early flight, and this was no exception. I slept maybe three hours beforehand. RDU was hopping at 4:30 am: a fair number of passengers, security well-staffed, and the lounge was open. The first flight to Minneapolis was ~3 hours and uneventful. The second flight to Tokyo was 13½ hours. My lack of sleep the previous night helped here, and I was able to sleep around 4½ hours on the flight. I lucked into a really good book, so I just read that when I wasn’t sleeping or eating.

Arrival in Tokyo

In my various travels, to India, UAE, Iceland, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey, etc., I’ve found that International Arrivals is pretty much the same wherever. Get off the plane, walk down the longest hallway you can imagine, up and down some escalators, sometimes go to a desk and fill out an arrivals form, and then line up for chit-chat with border control. For Japan, they have a website you can visit before your flight and fill out the arrival form online. You then receive a QR code you save on your phone. The QR system was brand new, so I think the airport employees were surprised by how many tech savvy people debarked the plane with QR codes ready to go. I can’t say the automated machines are intuitive or user friendly, but the arrivals area is well-staffed with people to help you through gestures and pointing, so I was able to cruise through everything in about five minutes.

Trains

You can buy and charge an electronic rail pass before you arrive in Japan. This is the Suica card I mentioned previously. It acts as an ‘Express Transit’ card on your (newer) smartphone. When you get to the turnstile, you just unlock your phone and then tap it to the turnstile. Having that set up in advance saved some headaches.

I had two general ways to get from Tokyo-Haneda airport to my hotel: one with less walking but with some train transfers, the other with fewer transfers but with more walking. Since I landed at a reasonable 3 pm, I opted for the walking route. I was able to take one train to Asakusa Station, which I think took around 40 minutes (I was in a sleep-deprived haze), and then walk 15 minutes to my hotel.

Tokyo-Haneda Airport Terminal 3 station.

Google Maps is good about telling you which subway exit to use so that you’re pointed in the right direction. Once up on the surface I mainly navigated by compass, knowing I needed to head northwest for 15 minutes or so, and that the specific route didn’t matter much as there aren’t bad neighborhoods to worry about. I happened upon the famous Nakamise-dori Street. Fortunately, it wasn’t as crowded as I’d seen in some YouTube videos.

Day 2 - Tokyo

I made it to the hotel around 4pm, exhausted, but determined to do some initial sightseeing. I toured around the neighborhood some, grabbed some quick bites from the nearby convenience store, and then settled in around 8pm local time.

Japan trip day 3

First explorations in Tokyo

Day 3

Courtesy of jet lag, I woke up at 3am. It was too cold outside to wander, so I killed time in the room until 5:30am and then got layered up for a walk. I visited Senso-Ji again and squeezed off some photos without the usual throngs of people. After that I walked the few blocks back to the hotel for breakfast. Hotel breakfast was a mix of East and West. I had this plate (below) all three days, plus seaweed salad and some sort of creamy soup I should’ve taken a picture of because it was awesome.

Western breakfast at Asakusa View Annex Rokku

When we lived in California there was a Kura revolving sushi in Cupertino, a few miles from our house. They were always doing a brisk business… the kind of place where you want to “get in line” using their app about an hour before you’re ready to eat. When I saw that there was a Kura two blocks over from my hotel I figured I’d check it out and see if it was similar to Cupertino.

It was not easy. I go to the address. Google Maps is telling me I’ve arrived, but I’m walking through a department store selling jeans and knickknacks and home goods, and there are NO signs for Kura.. or at least not using characters I recognized. I do some Googling and they say it’s on the 4th floor. Fine. But even getting off the escalator on the 4th floor it’s not clear. I walk the perimeter and finally find a monitor mounted to a wall next to a sink. It looks like this is the front of the restaurant? There’s no host stand or anything, only a screen. I should’ve taken a picture; it was very unassuming and a little unwelcoming tbh. I pull out Google Translate and yes, this is the check-in place. I seem to tap the correct button, indicate 1 person, and it prints out a receipt with the number 47 on it. I head inside…

… and am at least smart enough to figure out that I need to find seat 47.

Once seated there’s a QR code you can scan to open a page on your phone. From there you can order a la carte items, as well as choosing items from the conveyor belt.

I did a little of both. One side note about Google Translate and its camera feature: It’s really cool to be able to point your phone at a sign and have it translate it in real time. It does a pretty good job — enough for you to get this gist. My challenge here is that I wanted to translate what I was seeing on my phone’s screen. I ended up in this cycle of 1) screenshotting my phone, 2) opening Google Translate, 3) clicking camera, 4) clicking the upload image button, 5) uploading the screenshot, 6) getting the translated result back, and then 7) figuring out what it means. Rinse, repeat. It worked but yeah… it got old. But you know what? I was able to eat at a restaurant in Japan where there was zero English and leave satisfied. I’ll take the win.

For the afternoon, I walked ~2km to the Tokyo National Museum. Here’s a bit of that walk. Truly I could’ve spent a lot more time at the museum, but by mid-afternoon my energy was really starting to flag so I started my walk back.

The Buddha Amida, 1147

Once back at the hotel I spent some time relaxing in the lounge, enjoying the view, and catching up on laptop work.

Lounge at Asakusa View Annex Rokku

I was too tired for a proper dinner and ended up defaulting to a few konbini items from FamilyMart around the corner, then calling it an early night.

Japan trip day 4

Tokyo

Before we get into Day 4, I want to talk toilets. Japan is known for having fancy toilets, but how fancy? Here are the hotels I stayed at, in order:

The hotels got progressively better during the trip, but our Toto S550E at home outperforms the average hotel toilet in Japan (n=3). I will say that every hotel I’ve ever stayed at anywhere in the world (with the sole exception being the Lake Nona Wave Hotel) has toilets worse than the worst Japanese toilet.

Moving on…

Day 4

Today I wanted to explore other parts of Tokyo. I set my sights on Meiji Shrine, since it was in a different “neighborhood” / city, and it would take me to Shibuya. You possibly know Shibuya – this famous crossing:

But before heading in that direction, I wanted to check out Asakusa Underground, which I was made aware of the night before. The description made it sound cyberpunk as hell, but it ended up being underwhelming and a little depressing. No big loss, though, as it’s at the subway station I needed to be at anyway.

The train ride from Asakusa to Shibuya took about an hour (that orange line) on an efficient subway line.

This is when I started to get an appreciation for how massive Tokyo is! I did the obligatory walk across the Shibuya Scramble Crossing and then wandered around a bit, soaking up the culture. It’s busy and noisy, so I just kind of meandered through the shopping area in the direction of the temple, which took around half an hour.

Outside the entrance to the temple there’s a little cafe called CAFÉ Mori no Terrace. I paused at to have a coffee, warm up from the chilly walk, and to people watch, after which I made my way into the park.

There was even this one area with a few restaurants that reminded me very much of Northern California and made me a bit ‘homesick’ for that old life:

After my time at the park and the temple, I hopped the subway and made my way back to Asakusa. Again I had sushi at the restaurant across from my hotel, wandered the neighborhood for a bit, then called it an early night. Tomorrow: taking the train to Kamakura, plus a snow storm!

Japan trip days 5, 6, and 7

Kamakura

Thank You

One of the confusing language things I ran across was how to express thanks. I don’t feel that Duolingo or Pimsleur prepared me for what would be one of the most common phrases I’d need. I don’t feel I ever nailed matching the formality for the situation. How should I thank the person who sold me a croissant? Who checked me in to the hotel? Who helped me understand the Shinkansen tickets need to be put into the turnstile both at the same time (which is unhinged)?

Domo, domo arigato, domo arigato gozaimasu, arigato, arigato gozaimasu, arigato gozaimashita…

I’m sure I left a 7-Eleven with the cashier thinking, “Wow, that gaijin was DEEPLY THANKFUL for my help ringing up the fried chicken, onigiri, and Coke Zero.” And maybe I was.

Kamakura

Before I left for Japan, I knew I wanted to try to get out of the big cities for part of the trip but faced an abundance of choices that left me with decision paralysis. A former colleague suggested Kamakura:

“You can cover the highlights in a day, like Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine and the ~35’ tall bronze Great Buddha, but I enjoyed walking around the central area getting a feel for the town, which is on the smaller side. There are some beaches, and there are hiking trails in the hills that connect a number of temples.”

That all sounded pretty good to me, plus it’s close to Tokyo.

A light rain/sleet mix started when I was standing outside in Yokohama waiting for the next train. In the short time it took me to get from there to Kamakura the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Not only was it a rain/sleet mix, but the wind was gusting 20-30 mph at times. Despite my hotel being two short blocks from the train station, I still arrived there with soaked jeans and face.

Snow Storm

I think the severity of the snow storm took many by surprise. As the day went on the weather (and weather forecasts) became worse. The fact it was an icy snowy mix meant the sidewalks were all pretty slippery and it wasn’t easy to get around, so I mostly hunkered in my room and caught up on some jetlag sleep and writing. I did venture out mid-afternoon to grab some 7-Eleven lunch.

My room at the Hotel Metropolitan Kamakura. I loved this room! It overlooked one of the main streets of Kamakura.

Seriously, a delicious meal. That fried chicken is 💯

Still snowing, though less now.

I was heading to a tonkatsu place across the street but they ended up shoo’ing me away saying they were closing early due to storm.

Temples

As my colleague mentioned, there are a number of temples within walking distance of the downtown. On day 2 in Kamakura (day 6 overall), on my first morning after the snow storm I walked a mile to Sugimotodera. This was the smallest temple I would visit during my trip to Japan. It was also my favorite. There was another temple nearby, Hokokuji, so I walked over to that and had a visit. And then a nice walk on side streets back to my hotel. In the evening I walked down the street from my hotel to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shinto shrine.

Day 3 here was sunny and warmer. I got an early start and took a short train ride over to Kotoku-in, happy to be in that place with nice weather and no crowds. I casually walked the 2km back to my hotel, checked out, and headed to the train station. Please enjoy my photos of Kamakura temples.

I was happy with my choice to visit Kamakura, and would definitely visit again… in warmer weather. It did end up being the right size for me — small enough for me not to be overwhelmed by buildings and people, but large enough for there to be plenty to see and do. This is where I started to become a little more comfortable (or a little less uncomfortable) with the overwhelming differentness of the language and culture. I wasn’t any better at reading signs or speaking Japanese, but I was at least less bothered by that fact, if that makes sense.

Next: I travel to Kyoto, including my first time on the Shinkansen bullet train, and trying to use the worst automated ticket machine ever invented.

Japan trip days 8 and 9

Kyoto

Kyoto

I took the Shinkansen high speed train from Yokohama station to Kyoto’s central station. The Shinkansen experience will get its own post.

When planning my trip, I waffled a lot on where to stay in Kyoto. Do I want to be on the fringes of the city in a residential neighborhood? Might I want to try to stay in a ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese style inn with tatami floors and communal baths? If I stay over here in this hotel, do I want to then spend an hour on transit getting to these tourist attractions? Etc.

I ended up staying at the Kyoto train station at Hotel Granvia Kyoto. Being above the train station meant I’d be more centrally located for getting around, and there was an extensive mall complex wrapped through the station which was convenient for finding food or even just killing time walking around out of the cold.

After getting checked in and settled, I grabbed a late lunch in the mall downstairs.

The next morning I set out walking north from the hotel intending to check out Nijo-jo Castle and Kyoto Imperial Palace. It was a healthy 3.6km walk to Nijo-jo.

Within Nijo-jo Castle

Kamakura was where I first started to feel more at ease with being in Japan, and that feeling continued within the walls of Nijo-jo here in Kyoto. I consciously made myself be present here. Yes, I had my phone out some to take photos, but I also focused on mindfulness while walking the grounds. I took the time to read signs, breathe in the air, reflect, and find gratitude in being able to have this experience.

The grounds of Nijo-jo

From here Kyoto Imperial Palace is a relatively short 1.4km walk. I made my way from the south entrance to the grounds north toward the Palace but about half way there I hit a (metaphorical) wall. I was cold, tired of walking, and rain was threatening. I subway’d back home to the Kyoto train station, then hit the mall underneath for tonkatsu. I’m pretty sure I didn’t eat it right.

Kiyomizu-dera

The next morning I made an early start to see Kiyomizu-dera before the crowds hit this popular tourist spot.

On the walk back to the train station I spotted this good boy basking in the sun.

This was my last night in Kyoto and in Japan. I finished the day with some shopping and a 7-Eleven meal.

Tomorrow I take the bullet train to Shinagawa station and then a local to Haneda airport. It will be a day of travel.

For next time in Kyoto I would want to stay in a different, less urban part of the city. I’d like to get the feel for a Kyoto neighborhood, versus the built-up area around the main train station. I’d also plan to visit Osaka (probably as a day trip) and Nara Park.

Leaving Japan

Cutting the trip short but excited for next time

I’ve been in Japan since February 2, and am leaving in about an hour.

On day 4 I decided to truncate my trip from 13 days to 10. After four days I was tired of being cold all the time, even though I had properly packed for cold weather. I wasn’t enjoying myself. It meant that I couldn’t just stop somewhere like a park, temple, garden, and just sit and be present without my nose running and my face going numb.

Further, I’d booked this trip with only 15 days to prepare. I knew going into it this wouldn’t be anywhere near enough time. A minimum of three months would’ve been preferred, six months even better, but this was the timing that worked so off I went.

When I visit another country I do so with the understanding that I’m a guest there. The locals should not need to speak English. In places like Iceland, Germany, and Switzerland, the population does speak enough English so that by using a combination of common phrases, gestures, pointing, and Google Translate, you can kind of get by. This was not my experience in Japan. And to be crystal clear: this is on me. But after a few days the yawning language chasm started to wear me down.

The other (or another) facet here is that my not reading or speaking the language meant I wasn’t realizing the full potential of the experience. When I toured Nijō Castle in Kyoto, I feel that I missed a lot without an appreciation for the history of the place. I can eat tonkatsu, but I can’t communicate effectively enough to figure out what’s up with the various sauces. Most importantly, it means that I can’t express myself fully, have a conversation, or learn more about the culture from native people.

Let me pause for a second. The above comes across as negative, but I truly did have a wonderful time. I see this as the first of hopefully many trips in the future, and the beginning of my relationship with Japan, not the end of it. I’ll share a recap and photos of the sites I visited in a future post, but to wrap this post I’ll bullet point things that went well, and how I’ll better prepare for next time.

For this trip, some of the things that went well include:

  • Airalo eSim data service. For 99% of the trip it worked flawlessly, but for some damn reason it stopped working during the train from Kyoto to the Tokyo airport, and hasn’t recovered. Anywhere else on the trip and it would’ve posed a problem, but fortunately I knew which train I needed to connect to after exiting the shinkansen. I’d still recommend it. (Note from the future: this was 100% me picking the wrong data provider on my phone).
  • Trains and subways. That’s not to say there weren’t mistakes made. In one case I took the subway in Kyoto to the next station and, misunderstanding the GMaps instructions, crossed platforms and returned to the same Kyoto station I’d just left. It was easily fixed, and only 20 minutes out of my day. Overall, though, I was able to navigate trains and subways with ease.
  • Hotel choices. In Tokyo, I stayed in a more traditional part of town named Asakusa, at a modern hotel. There was basically everything you would need within 500M of the hotel: several temples, several subway stations, about 1000 restaurants and shops, Don Quijote megastore (which is certainly a place), and safe streets to get lost on. Kamakura is a smaller town, and my hotel was on a main street a 2 minute walk from the train station. In Kyoto I stayed at a hotel built into the main train station, which meant a huge assortment of shops and restaurants downstairs, as well as easy connections to the rest of the city.
  • Packing. Everything fit into my Osprey backpack, and truthfully I could’ve brought fewer clothes and still had everything I need.
  • Money. The mobile Suica card worked great except when it came to the shinkansen. As good as the shinkansen (bullet) trains are, all the software around reserving and boarding them is the opposite. The ticket machine is nearly unusable (“Enter ticket to buy ticket” — WTF?), and then it turns out it doesn’t work with the mobile Suica card… you have to go to the ticket counter. But overall, entering and leaving subway stations, and even paying for food and drinks at 7-11 with them, worked flawlessly.
  • Walking and wandering. At no point did I feel concerned about my safely. None. Early morning, late at night. Walking along a rural road a mile outside of town. Through peoples’ roads/alleys. No problems.

For next time:

  • At a minimum, finish lessons 1-30 of Pimsleur. The Pimsleur lessons are very sticky compared to Duolingo!
  • Find a native speaker to practice regularly with. There were phrases I knew from Pimsleur but I was too self-conscious to try using them. “Arigato Gozaimasu” got a lot of use, though.
  • Go when it’s warmer. For real. Not only was it cold most of the trip, it was also windy af. Did I mention it sleeted on me with 30-40mph gusts?
  • Get out of the cities. Kamakura was awesome in that I could basically walk to all the key places in town within about 20-30 minutes or so. After spending 3 days in Tokyo, this was a welcome reprieve. I’d still be looking for smaller than that, though.
  • Rent a bike or scooter. Averaging 10k+ steps a day is great for your health, but it limited what I was able to see.
  • Travel with someone, since loneliness was a key factor in my ending the trip early.

Trip recap and photos to follow in a day or so.

Sugimoto-dera Temple, Kamakura Japan

Shinkansen

Antiquated systems for the futuristic bullet train

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 seat1. 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 luggage2. 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.

Footnotes

  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. ↩

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