Japan (Day 8) – Kyoto, Part 1 [Video]

(Note: Bumper crop of images — almost 60 of them!) Early in the morning I had to leave Tokyo for Kyoto, where I would be spending the next two days with xanthe! To reach Kyoto I would take the super high-speed bullet train from Tokyo station. I had never been on a bullet train before so I was looking forward to it. In Japan, the bullet train is referred to as “Shinkansen”. In general, I tend to dislike asking for directions. Instead I would prefer navigating around on my own. The only thing is that the Shinkansen line at Tokyo station has about a gazillion different platforms and I ended up on the wrong platform! In the end I had to seek help at the information counter. Lesson learned: always ask for directions when you have heavy luggage and a large Hello Kitty cushion in tow! Three kinds of bullet train ply the tokaido Shinkansen line from Tokyo to shin-Osaka (kyoto lies along this route). My rail pass allowed me to take the hikari train, which I did at 11:06am. Every hour, two hikari trains operate on this route. Each train travels as quickly as 300 kilometres per hour. At [...]