Shinksansen to Tokyo

I took the fast train (the really fast train) back to Tokyo.

I should make this clear: I love trains. Unabashedly.

I grew up in a car, and I fly all the time, and there are great features involved in both of those experiences, but my favorite way to travel, far and way, is by rail.  

That's because trains are the best.  I love the vision of a city or countryside snapping past you, flickering from close-set utility poles or fences.  The subtle side to side sway of the cars on track as long swooping curves are taken.  The tiny carts laden with food (that I never feel the obligation to eat when I'm not hungry because it isn't free).  The ability to get up, walk a few feet, and use a restroom anytime you want.  The seats are generally comfortable and spaced well enough that you aren't climbing over people, and I find my fellow  passengers, once the train is in motion, are rarely high strung.

My favorite train memory, to this day, is still the train ride I took from Bangkok to Surat Thani, but the Shinkansen from Kanazawa to Tokyo is definitely the most luxurious trip I've had.

A side note:  Traveling on Japanese trains should be really easy.  There's a lot to know and it's all generally available (because it seems the Japanese have a deep-seated need to Know All The Things).  The problem is that this is offset in Tokyo by there being (pardon my French) a metric shit-ton of trains in some of the busier stations.

Let me go back and tell a story I left off about departing Tokyo last week.

When my traveling companions and I had left Ueno station, we had done so via a Shinkansen, and at first, the only information we had was that it left to a certain line of cities (including Kusatsu, our destination) at a certain time (12:12).  The tickets didn't tell us the platform number.

Ueno is huge, and the sort of transit station that built out of a city's need without the ability to expand outwards, so it's all piled on top of itself like a train-station version of the multi-tiered cake you'd expect to see at Alice's unbirthday tea party.  Any time you walk into Ueno station, there will be about a dozen trains leaving for various cities around Japan from the 22 platforms on 4 different levels throughout the station within the next twenty minutes.  

It's a lot.

It turned out there was an express (but non-Shinkansen) train to a city called Katsuta leaving at 12:12, and information on the overhead maps cycles between Kanji and Romanized characters rather quickly, and so after craning our heads at the various monitors like a flock of Flamingos, we collaboratively wound up on the wrong platform.

With about 7 minutes to spare.

The sign on the platform eventually cycled such that we realized we were 100% in the wrong place and as we returned to the center of the station the overhead audio announced that our Shinkansen train would be leaving in about 3 minutes from station 14.

Cue the "Run Run Rudolph" scene from Home Alone, we hauled ass and baggage through the station and raced down the stairs onto platform 14.  See platform 14 in the image above?  Turns out one set of stairs spits out onto the platform ahead of the  front of the train, this means you're actually looking at the empty track behind the platform, but it was built assuming Shinkansen might be longer someday, so. . .for one moment we thought, with relief, that the train was somehow running so late it hadn't reached the platform yet.

This was absurd of course, the Shinkansen network's average delay time is 24 seconds, total, and the overhead audio will apologize profusely for almost any delay, and the idea that the train, set to depart, might not even have arrived yet was unthinkable.

Then we turned around to see the front of our train behind us, and a concerned looking conductor gesturing at us and trying to ask if we were going to Kusatsu.

We sprinted the last 50 meters and got onboard without actually delaying the entire Japanese transit system with our foolishness, but it was. . . not the stress level we had hoped to associated with our last few minutes in Tokyo that day.

This happens.  Travel is an adventure and sometimes even the most seasoned travelers have an off day.

But none of us wanted a repeat of that when we left Kanazawa, so we had made a point of reaching the station early and getting food there, as I related in my previous post.  With more time to figure things out, and a much simpler station layout with slightly fewer stations, we purchased our tickets away from Kanazawa and reached our trains no problem.

 As I mentioned, the Japanese provide a lot of information,. which is lovely.  Here's the entrance to cars 5 and 4 on my companion's train.  Note that the map on the wall will tell you where all the other cars are, and even where other features within the train are located.

We were splitting the party, as I was headed back to Tokyo for two more days before going home, and they had a couple more weeks planned kicking around the country.  Delightfully, our trains departed from platforms 1 and 2, just fifteen minutes apart, which meant we got to stand and chat until the very moment my companions had to board.

It also meant I got to take a video of their train's departure. Note the safety doors (ubiquitous throughout Japan) and smartly dressed Train Station employee/conductor staff member on the station.

I had about ten minutes before I needed to board my own train after they departed, so I wandered through the station and stopped to take a picture of something that wasn't clear in my earlier vending machine picture.  Here is the selection of delicious, ready-to-drink (warm!) coffee that is available throughout Japan in vending machines.

Yes, it's made by Coca-Cola for their Japanese market, and yes, it is called Georgia.

No, you can't get it in the actual Georgia, in which I live, back home.

Yes, I find that frustrating.

So I bought one, because they're tasty, and then boarded my train.

I attempted to take a few pictures of Japanese scenery with my real camera on my way back to Tokyo.  When I get them uploaded to my computer we'll see if any of them are worth posting.