I think the shinkansen, or bullet train,
Is amazing
It's comfortable,
Always on time
And it makes it really easy to travel between cities in Japan
I just can't believe
It's been running since the sixties
So in this video
I'm going to show you what it's like
Going from Osaka to Tokyo
On the shinkansen
Now if you were driving
This journey would take about 6-7 hours
But on the bullet train
It's only 2.5 hours
I'll show you a few other things I found
Like this mini vending machine
Between carriages
If you have any questions
About going on the shinkansen
Just put them in the comments
And I'll do my best to help you
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Here's where you make your reservations at Shin-Osaka Station
With a massive sign!
You can't miss that one!
Here's the entrance to the shinkansen tracks
Here's my reservation
It says Hikari - that's the type of shinkansen
Number 522
That number's really useful for identifying your train
We're going from Shin-Osaka to Shinagawa
Car 6, seat 7E
Here's the screen with all the shinkansen on it
This one tells you which platform to go to
You can see it switches between Japanese and English
It's amazing that these are the trains going from Shin-Osaka to Tokyo
There's one every 10 minutes
So frequent!
The different services have different names
They depend on which route you're on
On this one between Osaka and Tokyo
There's the Nozomi
Hikari and Kodama
The difference is how many stations they stop at
With your JR Pass
You're not allowed on the very fastest one
Which is the Nozomi
Each individual train
Is referred to by that name & a number
So you don't get them mixed up
Today we're taking the Hikari 522
You can see that name & number on your reservation
And on all the signs
These signs tell you where the platforms are
They call them tracks here
They're really big
And really easy to spot
So you can easily see which way to go
One of the special things about going on the shinkansen
Is you can get an ekiben
It's a really fancy lunchbox
With lots of different ingredients
They're wrapped up - they look like presents
Some of them come in permanent holders
That you can keep
Like, there's some in wooden boxes
And one comes in a sort of porcelain pot
They look really fancy
And elaborate
You can only get them at shinkansen stations
You can usually find a shop
A bit like this one
As you go towards the shinkansen tracks
They're usually not too hard to find
Here's where you can get the ekiben
There's a couple of shops like this
At Shin-Osaka Station
They always have them at shinkansen stations
It's actually really difficult to pick which one to get
There's so many different types
The labels are all in Japanese
They're actually quite expensive
They're a lot more expensive than a normal lunch would be
The cheapest ones are about 800 - 850 yen
They go up from around 1000 yen
Up to about 1500
I think there are some really big ones that are about 2000 yen
So it's not cheap
But it is a nice treat
If you're going on a long distance train
*Japanese announcement*
"This train is out of service"
"Please don't get on this train"
We're on the platform now
This sign tells you
What the train is that's come in just now
And what the next one is
It switches between English & Japanese
Ours is the next one after these two
We got here really early today for once!
At least we're not late this time!
There's marks on the floor that tell you where to stand
For which coach
Here's number 6
And there's number 7
It's also very organised
These marks tell you where to queue up
To go into your coach
It goes along here
And then next to it...
You queue up for number 7
All these things just mean that
Even though it's so busy
It's actually quite organised
And it makes it a lot more bearable
To deal with the crowds
They're selling ekiben on the platform as well here
Some of the ekibens are regional
Or themed
This is the one of the Tokaido Shinkansen
Which is the one we're about to get
Going from Osaka to Tokyo
This one's 1000 yen
So we haven't got the official, correct ekiben for our route
Only in Japan
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This sign on the platform tells you
The next trains that are coming in on this platform
We're on platform 23
If you can read hiragana
First there's a nozomi
Then there's a kodama
And then there's our one
Hikari 522
At 1:16pm
It looks like the next two are out of service
Then it's going to be ours coming in to the platform
They switch between Japanese & English as well
With your JR Pass
You can go on any shinkansen you want
Apart from the very fastest one
This one that's stopped here
Is a nozomi
And that is the fastest one
The only difference between this one
And the ones you can get
With your JR Pass
Is that this stops at -
Fewer stations
When we get ours you'll be able to see
The trains are exactly the same
I think it still goes just as fast
It just stops at a couple more stations
There's more about taking the train
And JR Passes
In my video: Getting Around Tokyo
I'll put the link in the description
I think they look so cool!
"Ladies & gentlemen, welcome to the shinkansen"
"Bound for Tokyo"
Are you comfortable Phil?
Pretty good actually!
We got the spots at the end of the carriage for our suitcases
Yesss!
There's room for about 4 suitcases at the back
Behind the last seats in the carriage
If you don't get them
Don't worry, because there is room
To put your suitcase in front of your knees
There's quite a lot of legroom
Then if you've got hand luggage as well
You can put it on the racks above the seats
There's enough room along the top
To put a small suitcase
These are the mini ones you can have as your hand luggage
You can put backpacks & things up there as well
This looks like a newer train than the one we were on the other day
Still got pretty much the same facilities though
And they're both really comfortable
I always forget
That the train conductors bow
When they come into each carriage
And when they go out again
My favourite thing to do on the shinkansen
Is just look out the window
And see all the buildings
The mountains
Watch the scenery change
And see how densely populated Japan is
Even outside the cities
My other favourite thing to do
Is see how fast we're going
If you track your position on Google Maps
It really is amazing
In 11 minutes
We've gone from the red marker
All the way over here
That's crazy!
Here's the ekiben we picked
It's all wrapped up in brown paper
It says "Naniwa Meshi"
Not sure what that means
A lot of them look like presents!
It's in a proper little wooden box
Tied up with string
That's really cute
Here it is, it looks really fancy
There's 6 rice balls
That looks like some tamago
Kabocha
Is that fired octopus?
I'd have said so, but I don't know.
These look like maybe oden
Some daikon
And a mushroom perhaps
And that's kara age fried chicken
Some pickles
It came with this little note
It says it's a new but nostalgic lunchbox
Produced by a fancy Japanese restaurant
In Osaka
I've got a pickled plum onigiri
I wanted to try one of these
It's got a Japanese plum inside
Which is pickled & kind of salty
I'm not sure if I'm going to like it
I've heard it's an acquired taste
But I wanted to try one
This drink from the 7-Eleven
Yuzu lemon
Is really delicious
It's a bit like lemon flavour
But with a softer taste
I actually have had this before
At a sushi place once
And I didn't know what it was
I had some sushi rolls that looked like they had jam in them
It's a quite strong, salty, sour flavour
You can tell it's plum
If you knew
I don't think you'd be able to tell if you didn't know
It's got the umeshu flavour
Plum wine flavour
Finally, here's how to make reservations
With your JR Pass
Your Japan Rail Pass
You don't have to reserve a seat
But some trains can get busy
So it is recommended
And it doesn't cost anything
We're just outside Hakata Station
The first thing to do is make our reservation
For the shinkansen
We're going to use our Japan Rail Passes
You can see up there
There's a sign saying shinkansen
And JR Lines
And that's usually where the reservation office is
This is where you make your ticket reservations
It usually has a green sign
Or some green on the sign like this
Or this symbol with the seats on
Now I haven't seen these before
Last time we had a rail pass
But here they have these little slips to fill in
So you can tell them which train you want to get
And which time
Which makes it a lot easier
If you don't speak Japanese
The time we wanted was sold out!
So we've got the time after
So we've got an hour to wait now
So if you can
It's better to make your reservations in advance
Or the night before
Also it can get really busy
There can be quite a long queue
It's the same place where people exchange their tickets for their rail passes
So sometimes people can take quite a long time
So make sure you build in
Extra time for making your reservation
Next time we're starting the Tokyo videos!
There'll be more from my favourite places
Harajuku & Akihabara
And some completely new places as well
There's new videos every Thursday
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