After just two nights, it was time to say goodbye to Hiroshima: there's plenty of Japan left to explore and not nearly enough time, so we'd better get cracking. As Jonathan flies home on Saturday, we decided to spend his last three nights based in Tokyo, in part so we could meet up with his brother Nick.
So we packed up and got the streetcar back to Hiroshima station; unfortunately it took longer than we hoped and we missed the 0915. I thought there was another train at 0948, but on closer inspection of the timetable I realised that that only ran on certain holidays, so we were forced to wait until 1015:
Sanyo Shinkansen, Hikari Railstar 550: 1015 Hiroshima to Shin-Osaka arr 1144
I love Japanese trains. They run perfectly on time. They know how many carriages there are before they arrive. They tell you where the unreserved seats are, and they tell you where to stand for each carriage. You never seem to get short-formed trains or cancellations. There are plenty of platforms, plenty of tracks, incredibly long trains which nevertheless are often busy. And, most importantly, everything is signposted in English.
We headed back to Tokyo in basically the same way we had come, changing in Shin-Osaka. The mainline to the west of Japan is the Tokaido Shinkansen from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka, and the Sanyo Shinkansen beyond Osaka to Hakata-Fukuoka. Combined, they stretch 730 miles from end to end; that will increase when the line is extended over Kyushu to Kagoshima. The route is entirely linear, with no branches; this is mainly because we pass through pretty much all the major cities, including Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe.
When they built the Shinkansen, they required new platforms and tracks in every city, because of the wider gauge of track. In many places, more than one might expect, the Shinkansen has been integrated almost seamlessly into the existing main station: this is the case in Hiroshima, as well as in Tokyo. In Osaka, however, there was not enough room near Osaka station to put the Shinkansen, so they built a new station a little to the north for Shinkansen trains to use, with a rail connection to Osaka station. The new station was called Shin-Osaka, literally 'New Osaka' station. We didn't spend much time there, just grabbing a burger before boarding our onward train to Tokyo:
Tokaido Shinkansen, Hikari 516: 1213 Shin-Osaka to Tokyo, arr 1513
One very noticeable difference between the British and Japanese rail networks is the loading gauge; that is, the maximum size that trains can be in order to fit through tunnels. The British network is hampered from having been the pioneers of the railway: we're stuck with some pretty short-sighted decisions made over a century ago, which basically makes trains bigger than the 'standard' BR passenger train very costly because you have to expand the tunnels.
By contrast, the Japanese either planned ahead or have already altered their network to cope with good-sized trains. The default for a Shinkansen is 3+2 seating. However, in that you get considerably more seat width and much more legroom than you would anywhere in British standard class; I've never tried first class but I can imagine it might well be beaten by the Shinkansen. Not only that but you can stand up and walk down the aisle without hitting your head.
We spent the three-hour journey to Tokyo dozing, and I tried writing some blog to not much success. On arrival at Tokyo, we headed for the Aizuya Inn in Minami-Senju, where we had been meant to stay on Sunday night but for a computer error. In so doing we headed for the Yamanote line again: such is the efficiency of not just the layout but the signage of Tokyo station that we were on a train 9 minutes after arrival.
This is no mean feat in a station with 28 platforms: there are 10 elevated platforms for the Shinkansen (six for the west and four for the north-east), another 10 elevated platforms for suburban trains to much of the Tokyo metropolitan area, and 8 underground platforms (two sets of four) for other suburban services, including services to Narita airport. Those suburbs without services to Tokyo main station have services to one of Ueno, Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, and Shinagawa, all of which are connected by the Yamanote circle line.
Yamanote line, 1522 Tokyo to Ueno
Minami-Senju happens to be one of those suburbs served from Ueno terminus, which is itself pretty big. While Tokyo is the main Shinkansen station, where everything terminates, all services to the west stop at Shinagawa and Shin-Yokohama (Yokohama being the second largest city in Japan, though it basically merges into Tokyo), and all services to the north-east stop at Ueno. So between the Shinkansen and a bewildering array of suburban services, Ueno has 21 platforms: four for the Shinkansen, four for through suburban services to Tokyo, and 13 for terminating trains, including ours:
Joban line, 1542 Ueno to Minami-Senju
The Joban line is a commuter line to the east of Tokyo; we went just three stops (eight minutes) along the line to get to Minami-Senju. We walked the 10-minute walk to our hostel and checked into our twin room, perhaps a little smaller than I'd been expecting but enough room for two. It had Japanese style beds again, with folding mattresses that goes on the tatami-mat floor. After a brief rest to check emails and world cup scores, we headed back out to Akihabara.
Joban line, 1736 Minami-Senju to Ueno
Yamanote line, 1750 Ueno to Akihabara
Akihabara probably represents what most people think of when they think of Tokyo: bright lights and huge shops filled with the latest gadgets. We first headed to Yodabashi Camera, which despite the name now sprawls over seven floors and sells PCs, iPods, mobile phones, air conditioners, hi-fi sets, televisions, DVD recorders, watches, fridges and, yes, cameras. The scale of the shop is hard to appreciate: there is an entire aisle devoted to camera tripods, an entire aisle of computer mice, at least six aisles of iPod accessories - it's just mind-boggling.
They have an incredible selection of cameras and lenses, though not quite as big as I'd expected: it was certainly great fun to get a look at some of the huge telephoto lenses used by photojournalists and paparazzi which can just about fit in the ear of the person standing on the other side of the shop.
In the Apple section they had about ten iPads out for testing, and I have to admit that having used one in the flesh it is rather an enjoyable experience - I found that I could almost touch type, with a few mistakes that I'd probably get used to, which was way better than I was expecting. I realised later that, in some ways, I should have waited until the iPhone 4 came out to visit, though I expect it would have been crammed.
After leaving Yodabashi, we happened to bump into Nick, Jon's brother, which in a city the size of Tokyo is quite a coincidence. Nick had some time to kill, so joined us in looking round Akihabara. I had hoped to visit the Tokyo Anime Center but got there after it closed, so we wandered around the shops, before getting a bite to eat. We then browsed a bookshop - unforunately the English language section was pitifully small, but I did find a nice map of the railways around Tokyo. After that, Nick went back to his girlfriend's house (with whom he is staying for a few weeks) and we returned to the hostel:
Yamanote line, 2108 Akihabara to Ueno
Joban line, 2118 Ueno to Minami-Senju
Across the road from the hostel is a bar, which on Wednesday has a yaki soba party - soba being a kind of thin Japanese noodle - meaning that there was free food. Not that we wish to be called cheapskates, but who are we to pass up an opportunity to eat for free? We got chatting to an American guy who's been travelling round India, China and Japan for six months, and conversation quickly turned to the world cup; appropriately, since on Wednesday group containing England and the USA was to be decided with two games at 23:00 Japan time.
We then retired to the hostel to watch the England-Slovenia game with some other guys, including three guys from Edinburgh University. It was all smiles until the USA scored in the last minute to win the group, which meant that we'd be facing the winners of group D - which transpired to be Germany. But being able to watch the game with some fellow Brits - not to mention an Italian, a Frenchman and an American - made it so much more fun. I was especially glad that the match wasn't at 0330, as the other two England games had been.
We finally retired to bed at about 0100 after a long day, with plans for another busy day on Thursday.
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