Leaving Tokyo at 280 km/h

It’s our last morning in Tokyo for a week, and just as well, because our room has developed a potent pong from wet socks piling up over the past few days. Somehow, they refuse to dry. I guess that’s one downside to living in a tiny box.

Anyway, we were ready to leave the smell, and it felt as though the room was beginning to reject us too. So the feeling was mutual.

We were off on the Shinkansen today. Erin had pre-booked our tickets the day before for 10:30, so we packed our bags, piled into an Uber, and headed to Tokyo Station.

I thought we’d rock up to the station, grab a bite, and wait for the CountryLink train to roll through town. But when we arrived, it immediately became clear we were dealing with a different beast.

The station is enormous. People are everywhere, departure boards are constantly changing, and Shinkansen seem to arrive and disappear every few minutes.

We arrived an hour early to give ourselves time to find our platform and peruse the seemingly endless bento box options. A bento is basically the Shinkansen equivalent of an international aeroplane meal, only you get to choose, and it's not included in your ticket price.

We all ended up picking some variation of karaage chicken and rice. I’d been hoping to get one of the self-heating boxes for the experience and thought I had, thanks to a slightly misleading picture on the packaging.

Apparently not.

The train arrived, and we boarded. It was more spacious than we expected, and it’s easy to see why someone might choose the Shinkansen over a flight, even though they’re similarly priced. For tourists, anyway.

Plenty of legroom, large windows, no seatbelt light, and easy access to a toilet.

No personal message from the pilot, though.

I was a little underwhelmed at the beginning of the trip as we made our way out of Tokyo. I was going to ask for my money back.

I’d even downloaded a speedometer app on my phone, which confirmed my disappointment. We were only travelling at 70 kilometres per hour… far from the 280 km/h we were promised.

As we got further out of the city, though, we started speeding up. The buildings got shorter, the gaps between them got wider, and patches of grass started appearing where concrete used to be.

Then the speedometer hit 280 km/h.

Now we were hauling some ass.

Satisfied I was finally getting my money’s worth, we cracked open the bentos. Mine was delicious. The best part was some salty, seaweed-like jelly goodness that came on the side. I still have no idea what it was, but stirring it through the rice took the whole thing to another level.

Now we were living. Eating yet another delicious meal while the scenery flashed past the window at 280 kilometres an hour.

Not far from Tokyo, we got our first glimpse of Mount Fuji rising above everything in the distance. Pretty spectacular.

There was no snow on top, which would have been the icing on the cake, but I wasn’t about to complain.

For the rest of the trip, we settled in and watched Japan fly past the windows. Cities gave way to smaller towns, fields and mountains, then before we knew it, we were slowing down again.

Osaka.

A completely different city, and one we were about to spend the next few days getting to know.

But I think Osaka deserves its own story.