foreign
station as I sit here waiting for my train to Hiroshima now before this trip to Japan
it was a long a long time since I had taken a proper bullet train in between cities because
for my last trips I was working almost all the time so all the trips I did were more
or less near Tokyo so on this trip I'm taking three separate rides on the shrink on sen and
having done one already I can say with a hundred percent certainty there is just
nothing like it the transport system in general here in Japan is just like on another level in
my opinion there is no comparison and the comparison is especially Stark if I think
about all the Soviet trains I have taken in my Eastern European Adventures I can't
believe I'm allowing myself to film right now when I'm in the middle of a breakdown
[Music]
so I definitely a big difference here but that's not to say that Russia doesn't have
amazing phenomenal trains that are comparable to the sheikhansen uh I was just too poor at the
time to take them so luckily on this trip I will be doing a few different Journeys and I thought
it would be fun to do a sort of comparison video about the differences of going either
economy class on the shinkansen or doing the green class which is more or less their first class I
actually never done green class before so it's going to be interesting uh to see what that's
like that will be the next Journey that I'm doing where I'm gonna go from Hiroshima all the way back
to Tokyo it's a four hour ride so I figured it would make more sense to do it then when it's a
longer Journey instead of today's trip which is just going to be from okayama to Hiroshima only
about an hour and that's going to be an economy class so if this will be your first time traveling
on the shinkansen there are some things that you should know about beforehand let's begin with
booking tickets I would say in most scenarios you don't have to book ahead of time unless you are
traveling during cherry blossom season or golden week the busiest times of the year in Japan in
most scenarios there will be seats available on the trains just because they are so large and they
come so often the tickets are also quite flexible so unless you have to be somewhere at exactly a
certain time on a certain day I would say that you could leave it until last minute but personally I
prefer to have a certain seat reserved so I like to book my tickets online I'll actually put the
link in the description so you guys can just have easy access to it but you can of course book them
right at the station it would just take longer if there is a line and not all station workers
always speak English I would recommend coming to the station at least 30 minutes in advance that's
assuming that you already have your ticket so that can give you enough time to find the platform that
your train is going on and also buy any kind of food and snacks that you may want for the trip
and then the top tip that I could give you is to make sure that you are at exactly where the doors
are going to open for your seat on the shinkansen and be standing there at least five minutes before
your scheduled departure time because when the shinkansen comes it stops for only a minute or
two Max so if you miss it that is your loss and depending on the kind of ticket you have it can
sometimes be non-refundable most of the tickets though do have a rule that you can catch the next
one and go into cars one two or three and just find whatever seat is available those are called
non-reserved seeds so just depending on the kind of ticket that you get it can be really bad if
you miss your train [Music] so this is what the economy seating looks like in my opinion
it is really nice it's already quite spacious uh there are three seats on the left hand side
of the train and two on the right hand side now I will admit I did make a mistake with my oversized
luggage I should have got the extra luggage ticket that lets you store it at the back of the car but
you do have to pay an extra fee but I figured since it was so empty it was no big deal to just
put it beside me and it wasn't but on one of my future trains when it was packed it was an issue
so just keep that in mind if you have oversized luggage you will see an option with your ticket to
purchase a storage fee so overall economy class is super comfortable and since this was an only one
hour ride to get to my destination I didn't really see the point of upgrading to a higher class Ohio
gozaimas from Hiroshima eki we are here at the main station in Hiroshima and today I am going
back to Tokyo on the shinkansen in business class in green class I think I may have made a mistake
in the last parts of the video that I was filming where I said it was first class it is not have now
discovered that there is a first class experience on the shinkansen and it is called Grand class I
didn't know that because when I was booking my tickets I didn't see an option for this class
so I think it's only available on certain Journeys so green class is more or less the business class
experience where you're just supposed to have a nicer interior cushier seats some extra bells and
whistles have never tried it before so I am very excited it's great that I'm going to experience it
on a bit of a longer Journey since to get to Tokyo is going to take about four hours so I've got
about 30 minutes until my train leaves so I'm just gonna grab some snacks and we are gonna be on our
way when traveling long distance on the shinkansen I would definitely recommend picking up an ekiben
at your first station eki means station in Japanese and Ben is short for bento box and
while they do come around on the shinkansen selling different drinks and Bento boxes you
don't get the same variety as you do in the major stations so once you've got everything
you need it's the same process as economy class to find your way to the platform you need and to
also be waiting beside the gate where your seats are before your train arrives the business class
cabin will also be marked with this green little Clover Leaf that says green car and while there
is no conductor checking your tickets when you get in they will be checking your tickets once
you're already on the train so just make sure you are sitting in your correct seat my first
impressions of the green car is that the seats were definitely more comfortable and spacious
obviously than economy class since it is a two and two configuration instead of three and two
green class also has a foot rest that economy doesn't and the tray tables were much larger
another thing to keep in mind is that green class tends to be more popular with business
Travelers and for that reason alone it tends to be a lot quieter personally I would not recommend
bringing children into the green class since it is an expectation of overall silence so if you
are looking for less noise on your journey not that economy class in Japan is really that loud
anyway I would recommend the green class overall I would say that the price of the green car costs
about 30 to 40 percent more depending on the route than regular economy class like I said before this
does not include any additional food or drinks you still have to buy all of that separately
you really are just paying for a more comfortable and spacious cabin that tends to be not as busy as
economy class so to summarize my experience while I did enjoy green class and would recommend it
if you are going on a longer journey to have a bit more room and to be a bit more quiet if that's
what you're looking for but if you are going on a shorter journey I would say that economy class is
still great and you save some extra money that way so in my experience I probably would do the
same thing that I did with this journey is stick to economy for the shorter Journeys and upgrade to
Green if I do want more space on a longer Journey so I hope you guys enjoyed this video and found it
helpful let me know your thoughts in the comments and next up is going to be all my content from
Tokyo so stay tuned because that is my favorite city in the world has so much to offer so I'll
see you guys in the next one and keep being your own kind of beautiful bye guys [Music]