The Japanese Bullet Train by Tansy Hepton

Bullet Train. All photos by Pete Belsey who retains copywright.

Tansy is an old friend of ours who grew up near Redruth and has a passion for Cornwall in general and Berriman's pasties in particular - their bakery is within walking distance of Redruth Station by the way! Though she has now lived for many decades in Yorkshire. She and her husband Pete are great travellers and have discovered the joys and mysteries of much of our wonderful world, not to mention trekking up many of its sharper inclines... Here she shares her most recent adventure.

The bullet train

January 2025

Japanese trains are a wonder. Sleek-nosed, smooth, quiet and relentlessly reliable. The stations, less so. Finding the right platform at Tokyo Station for the Shinkansen bullet train to Nagano was probably the most stressful part of our whole holiday, not least because there were fifteen of us, in four different groups, all offering WhatsApp advice of varying quality.  It is one of the busiest stations in the world, with an underground metro and twenty eight platforms for the multiple commuter lines and long-distance bullet trains. But it’s the maze of small shops and eateries below the station, coupled with multiple numbered exit signs, that made it so hard to navigate.

Fortunately, we had left ourselves plenty of time and gathered to admire the green and purple ‘noses’ of the bullet trains on adjoining platforms. Although travelling by train is quick and popular in Japan, there are rules that apply. Many trains are reservation only and any bag that won’t fit in the overhead rack has to be booked in to a special (limited) luggage area. We sent our bags on to our hotel by van, which made everything all the more comfortable; travelling light is advised.

The train was timetabled at 13.04 and arrived on the dot and to the inch of the edge-of-platform gates. People got off, we got on and the train pulled away. No time is wasted on the Shinkansen – passengers are warned to be ready and the train won’t wait.

This was to be the first of our four train rides, three on the famous high speed bullets and one ‘scenic express’. All were spacious and civilised – no standing in corridors here. Of course, it helps that there are so many trains and that they are mostly sixteen carriages long. From Kyoto to Tokyo they were leaving every six minutes or so, for the two hundred and eighty mile, two hours and seven minutes journey, and each one was fully booked. The train attendants are different too. No need to check tickets, just look to see that the reserved seats are all occupied - no one in Japan would dream of sitting in someone else’s seat. Many attendants turned to bow to the passengers as they entered and left each carriage. It’s hard to see that working as customer training on TransPennine or Great Western Railway.

Of course, the trains were by no means the only attraction in Japan, although they were on our ‘must-do’ list. In Tokyo we embraced the neon and anime of Akihabara, go-karted across the Shibuya Crossing dressed in bright furry onesies, sang ourselves hoarse in a karaoke club, and threw salt into the Sumo wrestlers’ ring. In Ginza, while the younger members of our group shopped in the high-end stores, we looked up and marvelled at the sophisticated architecture.

Tokyo: Shibuya Crossing, Neon, Tansy and Pete go-karting, Ginza Architecture

We went from the city of shops to the city of shrines. In Kyoto we walked under the ten thousand orange torii gates of Fushi-Inari, stood with the hundreds of selfie-takers in front of the Golden Temple, mirrored in the lake, and wandered through the narrow streets of Gion lined with the traditional old wooden houses of the geishas. We were awe struck by the thousand 750-year-old multi-armed buddha statues of Sanjusangendo and calmed by the simple Zen gardens of rock and gravel. The garden at Ryoan-ji, designed in 1450, was my particular favourite. Fifteen moss-spattered rocks of different sizes swim in a lake of raked white gravel, but only fourteen are ever visible at one time. It’s timeless and unchanging yet, because it is freshly raked every morning, it is never quite the same. The fall of a single autumnal-red acer leaf is transformational.

Kyoto: Fushi-Inari, The Golden Temple, Zen Gardens

We ate stand-up sushi and standout teppanyaki. The egg sandwiches from the 7-11 convenience store lived up to their rave reviews, and we finally worked out how to open the takeaway ongiri, cleverly packaged to keep the seaweed wrap crisp and dry. I took a real shine to the sweet ‘melon bread’ but the simmered octopus and dried mullet roe in our special Japanese breakfast defeated us. We tried the powdered green tea (matcha), whipped up to a froth with something that looked more like a shaving brush than anything else, but it couldn’t match a proper Yorkshire brew.

Japan is definitely different. Its deliberate choice to remain isolated from the rest of the world for much of its history has resulted in food, culture and architecture which is distinctive and unique. Politeness is endemic, and we grew used to mutual bowing every time we entered or left a building. I overheard a Japanese man telling a group of Indian tourists that Japanese people will never do anything they consider shameful, which includes rudeness, wastefulness or even littering. It’s a clean, efficient and fascinating place and we can’t wait to go back and explore more of it.

Thank you to Tansy for sharing her intriguing travels and to Pete for his beautiful photographs. I am currently enjoying an armchair dive into Japanese culture, from a foreigner's point of view, as I was given Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad as a Christmas present. This is the book from his hugely popular (he has millions of viewers) youtube channel of the same name.

Am thinking I may take up the practice of bowing every time I enter a room, whether anyone is there or not ...