Japan Day 4 - Travel to Kyoto

Whoever said getting the train from Tokyo to Kyoto was easy either had a good grasp of the language (very little is in anything other than Japanese) or have had trouble travelling elsewhere. We rose early, headed out for breakie (a significantly lower priced cup of coffee from a non Starbucks establishment) and packed up the cupboard we'd been staying in for the past few days. One of the handy things about backpacking is leaving a hotel room does not take long though as the bags get fuller, they do require more care to pack to close.

Resembling the rare black backed turtle we headed out of the hotel, turned right and straight to Shinjuku Higashi underground. A short (but rather expensive hop) on the train to anoter Shinjuku station (with all too many vowels in it) landed us in Tokyo. It is odd to remark here that a one stopper costs 170Yen, and a 12 stopper costs 190Yen. Go a long distance in Japan if you want value for money. Although, now we're actually at Tokyo station we still had to purchase our ticket. The Shinkasen trains (the bullet ones) are not very good value for money. About the same as a domestic plane ticket before you add the ridiculous taxes and fees that since 911 have become the norm. Two tickets and around $300 later we were still faced with the issue of exactly where to go (incidentally - if you wanted to sit down while traveling the 600km, that was going to cost you extra). As I mentioned before, all of the signs and the tickets were in the local scrawl leaving us with little more then intuition to go on in order to find the platform, and the carriage we were to embark upon. Fortunately, two lost looking Westerners don't go too long looking bewildered in this fabulously polite country. Within no time a young lady asked where we were going and a few "arigato's" (thank you) we were soon pointed in the right direction. Just as well, we had only 4 minutes left to catch the train. The non-English speaking chap at the ticket counter either over estimated our guile for travel, or underestimated our lack of knowledge of Tokyo Train Station.

So, here I am now, sitting on a train traveling around 300km per hour, watching some of the most beautiful parts of Japan in-between blinks of an eye and the long tunnels that ink out the surroundings. The sandwiches, though tasty are small and crustless and come with the same British Rail requirement to sign away your first born or hand over the mortgage dead. I understood now the proliferation of bento box sellers at the station. Much better value for money and far more satisfying.

We're heading to Kyoto, by all accounts a place we're looking forward to immensely. Japan is not an aesthetic country, sort of cobbled together until it works, that is of course much of the beauty of the place. however, I understand Kyoto breaks the mould and has a much greater projection of purposeful beauty. Even the Japanese feel that as far as urban attractiveness goes, Kyoto is the place to be and see. I'll write more tomorrow and let you know.