Secondly, check out my visit to Tokyo Aquarium. It has more drums, is full of fish; and even has the best meal ever conceived! The whole day was fantastic.
So onto yesterday.
Yesterday was a travelling day, I took the shinkansen (bullet train) from Yokohama to Kyoto; and arrived around 2:30PM, having left at 12PM. Frankly speaking the whole thing was too efficient. While i was on the train I wrote todays entry, so here it is:
At this point I mention Nan and Ray. I got the people in the hostel to say happy birthday in Japanese, and I recorded them, but I've lost that days' pictures and videos. So hey Nan, happy birthday! I'll give you a ring later.
And hey Ray, happy birthday, I'll probably catch you on MSN when you should be working, at a later date.
So I'm sitting on the bullet train, on my way to Kyoto.
I woke up this morning and decided I'd had enough of Tokyo and Yokohama. I'm off to Kyoto, for some serious temple and shrine sightseeing, while meeting up with Pascal for some fun and frolicking; maybe. I'm told there's not a lot to do in Kyoto, other than the temple and shrine route. This has driven a number of my fellow travellers to distraction, and I've found a number of them crave the Tokyo life after only a week or two in Kyoto. I have to say that the type of person who's commented in such a way is usually here for the technology, rather than the general tourism. A number of people have come here on stays for cultural reasons, Naree for example, and loved Kyoto. Then again, she was engaged in dancing activity for a large amount of her time, so it was more like a job than a sightseeing tour I guess. We'll see how it turns out for me, I might get bored of it, I might not.
One of the guys sitting next to me seems extremely nice, he's chatted a little, and even showed me the power socket for my computer. His English isn't very good, but neither is my Japanese so I think we're equals in this sense. The other guy is too cool for school. Ginger hair is big over here, men and women wear it with equal zealousness. Genetically speaking, I don't think it's possible for a native Japanese to have anything other than black hair, so when they see foreigners with blonde hair and blue eyes, they immediately stare, mouth agape. If you happen to be blonde and have blue eyes, and be female, no matter how ugly you are - a job teaching English beckons here.
So to explain my motivation for dropping such a large amount of money on this mode of transport: The shinkansen is just awesome. It's doing two hundred miles per hour, and it feels like we're on a cloud. The trains have their own dedicated tracks which means no interruptions by normal intercity riff raff, and the tracks have neither junctions or much in the way of bends. Those corners we do round, as you'll see in my videos when I upload them, are banked like an american oval to a degree that you can actually feel your bum being pushed into the seat. That's really g-force. However minor it may be, the fact it happens on a train is just plain mental.
I also can't emphasise how luxurious this travel is, even in scumbag class (I accidentally got on the wrong end of the train, meaning I had to walk, bag and all, through all the really nice parts of the train, knocking people, cups, sushi, bento and all flying) I have ample legroom, and I mean ample, just check out the pictures. My baby laptop is sitting so far away from me on the aeroplane style desk, that I'm having to lean forward to reach it. This is amazing. Width is still something of an issue, but since the age of ten it became obvious my shoulders were not designed for public transport. Height is the most amazing thing though.
Most trains require me to enter sideways, while bent double in a full ninety degree shuffle. This modern, forward looking transport system means I only have to nod my head down to get through the doors, and once I'm inside I can stand tall! It's amazing! In twenty years time, foreigners might not even have to duck at all.
I've been on the train an hour or so now and the air hostess lady has passed three times. Now that's (expensive) service.
The noise is also something that took me by surprise. English trains, at their fastest, do half the speed of this thing; but by god do you know they're doing that speed. One hundred miles an hour on an English train may as well feel like a thousand, and every time another train goes past those with gulf war syndrome jump aside for cover; and those sleeping pretend it didn't just make them wet themselves.
Here, when another bullet train goes past, in the opposite direction, at a combined speed of over 400 miles per hour you hear nothing. I kid you not. Nothing. The only reason you know something just happened is because train rocks slightly, and by the time you look over to see why, the other train has already gone.
So it was getting a little crowded between the other two guys, so I switched seats, and using my incredible foreigner powers I've bagged myself a seat with a spare to the side.
The efficiency of the entire endeavour boggles my mind, every time I think about it. It's never late, there's no fuss with tickets and whatnot because you ask someone before buying, buy it from a person, have it pass through a machine, then another person checks it. In terms of economic efficiency, it's probably much more labour intensive than it could be, and therefore much more expensive; the human and mechanical efficiency of such a system means that everything runs smoothly. It's obviously an expensive service, as I've just seen first hand, but the fact a large number of people are using it, even today at a decidedly non-peak time is testament to the value this service holds, beyond the cost.
I guess justifying having eight members of crew on-board a single train, not including the drivers (plural) would be difficult for the bigwigs who run British trains.
On a side note, rural Japan seems to be extremely nice. Contrary to what I was expecting, a large percentage of the houses do seem to carry the traditional style to some extent, specifically the typically oriental roof design, that seems so frivolous and eccentric. It's difficult to see at this speed whether there are any wooden buildings left, I fear this might be simply a dream. The number of rice fields here is also surprisingly high but then again, Japan produces 120% of the rice it needs as a country, so presumably they've got a large export industry in rice. This is of course nullified immediately by all other foodstuffs. Except maybe daikon. They love daikon here, and I don't even know what it is; bar some kind of vegetable. All meat is imported, hence the horrific bill I paid yesterday for my yakiniku meal. A day on and it was still worth it though, so I figure I'm safe in terms of conscience on that spend.
On a further note about Japan; I learned in a geography lesson a while ago that the landmass of Japan is primarily mountainous and cannot be built upon. Therefore, despite being (roughly) 1.1 times the size of England, they only have the luxury of being able to build upon a quarter of that land. This is the reason for the chronic population densities, that top anywhere in the world. Having been here for a while I couldn't really see where this particular mountain statistic came from, or what the Japanese obsession with yama (one of the few kanji I know, 山, mountain) was. I now know. Since we left the built-up regions I've seen nothing but mountains. And I should add they're mountains that are quite definitely not populated, or able to be built upon. The effect is quite incredible, having massive high rise apartments a stones throw from a great big hill. Although most are quite modest, some reach through the clouds. Most belong to chains, and I suspect a lot also have shrines and temples on top, with thousands of steps ala Kill Bill, or any number of samurai/martial arts films.
Factor all this into a population of 125 million, and the density now makes perfect sense in my mind.
Awww jeez I wanted to write so much more, but we're already at Kyoto. Damnit.
You never know, maybe we'll be delayed and I'll have more time to write...
And now for some pictures!
A funny little warning telling you not to run on the platform.
Presumably to see this sign you've made it onto the train; so you survived the platform experience. You never know though I guess; someone might have been carried aboard.
It also tells you the load weight of the table! How thorough a warning is that!
I don't think you can buy this kind of space on any other mass transit system. First class? Pfff who needs that...
Three on the left, two on the right.
That's as many words as I can stretch this picture to.
The hustle and bustle of Tokyo only really begins to become apparent once you move to a city like this. There are still 1 million or so people living here, but it feels like a village... Albeit a village with a metro line.
It's like something out of a horror film - decimated population, zombies in the woodwork, that kind of thing.
In the middle of kyoto.
Interesting.
A lot of them were pretty beaten up though it has to be said.
I do think the mini is the perfect car for here though.
So for the Shinkansen videos:
So this is the platypus jawed machine pulling into the station.
I managed to get on the wrong end, and had to traipse through the entire train; knocking people and sushi flying. (they have an airline style food service onboard) A lot of people were very angry. Stupid foreigner.
And this is an onboard shot; looking out of the window. You can clearly see the banking of the track in this photo, and it might make some seasick! Advisory, don't look at this video if you get motion sickness!
Oh wait, this is below the video... Oh well (please don't sue)
So basically this machine is expensive, and horrifically efficient. Efficient beyond the realms of probability. But then again everyone already knows that anyway...
Ride the shinkansen: Tick.
On an unrelated note, Naree used a couple of my pictures on her website.
Picture one: A tree that she made negative. On her homepage as well!
Secondly: A blurred picture of the zanily dressed girl! I don't really like this picture because it's blurred as hell! But then again, covert documentation such as this often carries with it such risks of poor quality. Thanks for using my pics!
Ciao for now!
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