Shaw & Tash's Travel Blog

Internationally renowned for it’s immense speed, today we went on the bullet train!  We’ve traveled from Hiyoshi by Yokohama to Kyoto which took just under 2 hours- the google map linked there reckons this should be about 4 hours sans-bullet train!

the bullet train!

The train itself does look proper futuristic from the outside, and the inside is really spacious- but it was a bit of an anti-climax i think. There’s no denying it does go well fast- the outside scenary is just a blur compared with normal trains, however it is essentially just a normal train which goes a bit faster- i dont really know what i was expecting to be honest; i think like a lot of things in Japan they are get really hyped up and then you’re suprised by how normal they are.  This wasn’t one of the magnetiv floating trains- apparently there’s only one of these further north in Japan.

So we’re settled in our hotel in Kyoto, which is actually really swank which we were suprised at, with it being one of the cheaper options available.

Our Hotel's Swanky Garden

We went up the Kyoto sky tower, a classic for any new city and saw a couple of bits to go and see which we then saw today.

view from the tower

They have a whole mass of old skool buddist temples and another giant budda!

Back at the hotel we booked a day trip tomorrow to see hiroshima and miyajima which should be cool. Our last day in Kyoto will be Wednesday when they have a big festival going on which will be good to see.  Anyway I’m off for dinner now-will post some picture from the trip up the day after tommorow!