Traveling to Tokyo

17.8 Anon Traveler's comments on previous post while taking shinkansen train to Tokyo

When we arrived to Osaka, the first thing embracing us was a hot humid air. After first shock it all became quite manageable though, and luckily all public transportations are air conditioned. My personal goal for the first day was to learn a bit about how japanese transportation works and to set my personal clock to japanese time. I was a positively suprised how well this worked out.

Not falling asleep was kinda an issue in the evening, but we somehow managed to stay awake until 23:00 japanese time. Basically we just had to stay awake two days in a row with only a little nap in between. Well, the doctor who treats you does that all the time so it shouldn't be an issue for travelers either. Having vending machines with cold drinks available on just about every street corner - almost instantly when needing a drink was also a good help. It was well worth the effort - now waking up at 8AM felt like waking up in the morning.

Also we were able to familiarize ourselves on the japanese railway sign system and to complete the trial, visiting Kyoto bonfires during our first evening in Japan. Sounds simple, but there were many steps to be solved before we could see any bonfire and still come back to our hotel at Osaka..

People are very kind to foreign travelers, they seem to try their best to help us and are very honest. One lady run after me because the change I had been given was 3 yen short. I have no idea how they even noticed that afterwards - 3 yen totals to about 2 euro cents..

It is now raining for the first time during our japan trip and luckily we are still moving with the train, hopefully it stops before we arrive to Tokyo.

-- Anon traveler


Photos from shinkansen
(by Hans)

Police officers standing guard at the shinkansen station in Osaka. Security was tighter than normal to prevent terrorist attacks according to official signs placed around the public transportation.

Hikari shinkansen - the one we traveled from Osaka to Tokyo with. We bought Obentos (pre-packed lunch boxes) from the station to take with us to shinkansen, and just made it in time.


Inside a shinkansen. There's two rows of chairs on the left, and three on the right. The chair pairs on the left side can unlolcked with a foot pedal and turned around to form groups of four facing chairs.

-- Hans


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Uploaded 18.8 from our ryokan in Tokyo.