And since this week we also have our shinkansen-tickets (bullet train) for our vacation in Japan. Via www.hyperdia.com/en we’ve selected the trains and a local colleague from Sander bought the tickets for us because buying the tickets can only be done online in Japanese, at the train stations or via travel agencies. From those three the latest two options would have been possible but buying locally would have been a risk since we travel through Japan during the Japanese spring break which means that it can be really crowded and trains at popular times can be sold out quickly. Buying them via a travel agency would have mean that we were net able to select the exact schedule.

So what schedule do we have for our trains? On Saturday we leave Tokyo at 8:27 with the Nozomi Shinkansen towards Kyoto where we arrive at 10:3, give or take a couple of seconds. after one night in Kyoto we leave towards Hiroshima with again a Nozomi Shinkansen at 12:52 Nozomi Shinkansen.And after staying one night in Hiroshima we will leave here at 15:08 to go back to Tokyo where we arrive at 19:06. For this long ride we’ve ordered seats in the so-called green car, this is the name for 1st class in the Shinkansen. One of the best things about the Shinkansen is that you will always face in driving direction because at the end of the line they can rotate the seats, this makes it easier to select seats.

For this trip we’ve got 5 train tickets and they are in Japanese! Which means that if we are lucky we do understand our tickets, but we’ve found an easy explanation on the internet.

We can’t wait to leave to the land of the rising sun!