Day 4 Touring: Tokyo to Kyoto, Sun, Haze, 17

Well, that was fun! We've just arrived at our small, casual hotel in Kyoto and now that the laundry is in a machine washing somewhere downstairs there's time to write the blog. I wasn't going to write today, but this is my travel journal and I like to write most days when on the road. Besides, today was particularly fun. With a bit of time on our hands this morning we walked up to Uedo Station to find breakfast and shake out the tightness that comes from sleeping on a very, very hard bed. Great little hotel, tough beds! We returned to claim our gear and walked to the local metro to train down to Tokyo Station to catch our train.  

Not just any train, but the Shinkansen Bullit Train. The safest, second fastest train system on the planet! The fastest trains are still in Spain, and yup, fast! 

Top speed on the Japanese Bullit is 199 mph or 320 kph! 

As we had nothing else planned this morning we arrived early to wander the massive station, find some food for the 2 hour, 40 minute journey and then train watched for a while. There is quite a process established for turning around these trains, and they are lodged in their own special area.

  

After a train arrives and the protective barriers side open the passengers depart and special worker teams in colour coded uniforms show up. These are very focussed workers. They each exchange bows with the train staff and then almost run to their assigned cars.

 

I watched as they first turned all the seats on each of the 16 train cars around...yup, I said around. The trains often come in from one direction and reverses back to where they've arrived from. There is an engine car at each end of the train. Very typically Japanese efficient. 

Then they put clean head rest covers on each seat, 5 seats to a row, 24 rows per car. After that's done they sweep off each seat, vacuum the floors, clean the three toilets on each car, collect and take away all the garbage and then exit their assigned car. All this in just 5 minutes! In the meantime, we passengers line up very orderly...hey no pushing! 

 

And then when we are instructed to do so we file very nicely and politely onto the train and find our reserved seats. The first 5 cars are festival seating and I can only imagine the carnage that must occur when the very polite Japanese passengers meet the more jockeying type non-native passengers. We are travelling with rail passes that are only available to foreigners and significantly reduce the cost of travel on the trains and in the cities. This allows us to reserve our seats in advance at no extra cost, so we did. The reserve seats are at the back of the train and are more expensive, but safety has its cost. There is tons of leg room too!

 

A few more photos of the trains, and then we will head off to Kyoto.

 

 

A snap of Annemarie preparing herself for the ride.

 

And then we were off! I know it will surprise some, but I did take a few photos along the way, and some great video to show the speed. We were flying along mostly over flat ground and through tunnels so it felt like we were travelling pretty much at top speed. So fast that I shot the following photos at 1,200th of a second, and still there was a bit of blur in bits of the pictures on objects close to the train. 

 

 

I generally managed to miss the posts and trees, but at the speed we were going it was more a matter of luck than skill. Case in point...

 

 

We are in Kyoto for 5 nights, but hope to manage a couple of day trips including to Osaka and perhaps also to Mount Kōya to hike up to where Kōbō Daishi is buried. I had planned to stop there at the end of my pilgrimage to pay respects and to obtain the final stamp in my book, but if we can manage it with a long day and our train passes then Annemarie can also have the experience of the hike through the cedar forest. The first page of the Henro pilgrimage stamp book, the nō kyō chō, is left blank for this stamp and calligraphy. Also we wouldn't have to carry our gear if we go there now, and We get to start a piece of the walk, because I have very itchy feet! So a less expensive trip with just our day bag, the zudabukuro, a bottle of water and some food for the hike. A cooler day tomorrow with rain forecaste so we will stay in Kyoto and have a look round and see what we can arrange at the train station to accommodate the above plans.  

We are both well and it feels like we've been gone weeks already though I believe it's only days? I think that after many travels, once we leave the home departing thing behind we just fall easily into our simple travel rhythm. For now, a pleasant way to enjoy retirement. Hence part of my enjoyment, to write and also to blog as I go.