Saturday, 27 October 2012
The Tokyo Express wasn't leaving until 9:25 but I was awake around the regulation back home time, which meant (a) the body clock was still operating in Australian mode and (b) we had time, once we'd risen around six for a leisurely movement through the shower, and a casual check of the final packing arrangements.
So casual, in fact, that when we made our way downstairs at the scheduled starting time for the Viking we neglected to grab the two vouchers on the way out. Back upstairs, minor panic when they weren't quite where we thought they were. It was a timely reminder that you don't want to take things too easy.
There was a single pass through the buffet for Hughesy, and Madam's return visit brought back a single serve of a single item. We were back upstairs by 7:40, loaded and locked and checking out comfortably before eight, with intentions towards the 8:05 shuttle, which delivered us to Sannomiya in plenty of time to take the one stop underground leg to ShinKobe, arriving a good three-quarters of an hour before the scheduled departure.
The frequency of Shinkansen services along the Tokaido line was underlined by the fact that our 9:25 Hikari was the third train headed for Tokyo after nine o'clock, and followed almost immediately after a faster Nozumi, which left at 9:22.
Once aboard the Black Monster went into the space behind the seats at the back of the carriage, the backpacks went onto the overhead, and we settled back for the three hour haul to Tokyo.
As is so often the case, as soon as the train started moving we were straight into a tunnel and when we emerged a minute or two later we were zooming along around rooftop level. We'd landed Car 7 Seats 10 B&C, which meant we didn't have access to the window seat, which seemed to be vacant. I could have been tempted to snaffle the spare seat but with Osaka and Kyoto coming up in quick succession I thought it might not be a good idea.
Just as well. A couple of minutes later we were in Osaka where a flood of passengers filled up most of the vacant seats, leaving 10A teasingly empty as we set back off. That brought us onto the flat land between Osaka and Kyoto, passing houses intermingled with agricultural plots, assorted commercial premises, apartment blocks, a stretch of forest, a real patchwork of land use.
We came up into Kyoto in a hurry. One moment I was checking we hadn't passed it without my noticing because I thought we'd be there by now and the next, there we (quite literally) were. Another flood of incomers failed to fill 10A, so as we emerged from the regulation tunnel on the way out of Kyoto I took advantage of the vacant window seat. With half an hour until Nagoya I might as well.
Again, the land between Kyoto and Nagoya is mostly flat, with the same patchwork of land use. We weren't quite in Nagoya when the news ticker at the front of the carriage revealed Silvio Berlusconi had been sentenced to four years, and Nagoya delivered an occupant for 10A.
The presence of a head between Hughesy and the window had me looking around a bit more than would have been the case otherwise, something that underlined the cambering of the tracks on the Shinkansen lines.
Queensland has the notional tilt train that heads along on the regular railway tracks, but if you want genuine speed and extremely rapid transit you want to be travelling on a train that leans into the cambered curve.