We are about to board carriage 16 of the Shinkansen Superexpress Hikari 513. Colloquially known as the bullet train. An army of cleaners are doing their thing. Usefully the men wear smart blue overalls and the women wear pretty pink ones. This helps us all to tell which is which. They leave and the guard, in his cap and smart cream suit, who looks like Sulu, welcomes us aboard. The train looks amazing from the outside, being very sleek and bullet-shaped, but is slightly disappointing inside. It's seating is basic, although there's plenty of room, and more like First Capital Connect than Star Trek, which is how I imagined it would be. The loos are basic too. But it is all very clean. Southern Rail could do with a team of cleaners boarding after every long journey.
I'm hungry. I can smell food, all around us our fellow travellers are eating. After stopping at a couple of local stations we pick up speed. We are travelling very fast although it doesn't feel it of course. The guard, who obviously has lots to do, passes by every now and then. Each time he enters or leaves our carriage he turns and bows.
The train is bound for Shin Osaka via Toyahashi, Nagoya, Gifo-hashima and Kyoto.
A trolley arrives. Jill has sandwiches and I have a Bento box. Unfortunately I start eating the contents before I think to take a picture. Two large cold rice-pudding and black seaweed balls, a small piece of cooked fish, a slice of calamari, a little ball of something white and pasty and a pickle. Jill is not impressed but I think it's delicious. Another lesson Southern Rail could learn.
We pass Mount Fuji and Jill takes a picture. You can see it on her FB. We think it's Mount Fuji - it's very cloudy.
And so three and a half hours later and spot-on time, we arrive at Kyoto, and look for our connection. Down more stairs.
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I think the bullet trains look very impressive when you see them zoom past, but are, after all, just trains going fast when you are inside. They started running in 1964, at a point when Britain was shortsightedly closing hundreds of stations and leaving branch lines to rot. So sad. So stupid. The service is very impressive, spot on arrival and departure often to the second!
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ReplyDeleteSo what if a woman cleaner would rather wear a blue uniform, I wonder aloud. We discuss this for a while. We're still wondering.
ReplyDeleteA bullet would take only 15 minutes to get to Kyoto - I think? Yes, definately about 15 minutes. So calling it the BulletTrain is a bit much. But, better than Southern Rails famous Tortoise Train.
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