Our first Shinkansen trip.

Arriving at the right time at the right platform was just the start of successfully boarding our 9:18 to Himeji from Osaka. The second part we were blissfully unaware of until a young British couple helped us out. Always check to see if the Shinkansen has 8 or 16 cars because it makes a big difference to which part of the platform you will be queueing at to board the train. On our ticket it told us car 5 and our seats 4a and b. At the last moment we had to move to a totally different part of the the platform thanks to this information. On we jumped with our cases and made our way to our seats.

As the train very quickly accelerated I just had time to take a photo of the Umeda Skytower.

Soon the scenery was blurring away. Well that is except when it was going through a tunnel, which seemed a large part of the time. So then the scenery looks rather black through the window.

At Himeji we left our first Shinkansen and visited the famous 1580 castle. (See the next post for more on this.)

From Himeji we boarded this rather colourful purple Shinkansen. Unfortunately this lady also wanted a photo as it arrived.

We had barely found our seats and the train was hitting a fast speed. Sometimes there were tunnels but at other times we had half a view like this. Railings or barriers are built to cut down on the noise I guess.

At other times we actually could see most of the cities, towns and countryside as we sped along.

It was certainly a good experience to travel the Shinkansen and as we continue our trip around Japan we will have many more such trips. One thing I have learnt though is that it’s hard to type as the train goes along, especially on a bend at amazing speeds.