Day III - Travel to Kyoto

Day III - Travel to Kyoto

After a long night out in Tokyo we got ready to catch a bullet train to our next destination, Kyoto.

The Japanese public transportation system is absolutely phenomenal. There are seemingly unlimited subways, trains, trams and buses that can get you around all of the major cities. Tokyo's subway system is intimidatingly large, but if you know where you are and where you want to go it is fairly simple to figure out.

I'd like to take a minute to discuss the Tokyo subway system, as it is unlike anything I have ever seen. If you try to get on the subway at rush hour, you literally have to PUSH your way onto the train to get on. At certain stations they even have workers whose job it is to shovel you onto the subway.

Another strange thing about the Tokyo subway is that for some reason it is completely acceptable, and in fact is common practice, for people to sleep on the train. These are not homeless people looking for somewhere to spend the night or partiers who stayed up all night and can't stay awake on the ride home - they are businessmen going to work, women shopping with their friends, teenagers, kids, everyone.
I'd guess that on any given train about 10% of the people are asleep.

In certain situations even American tourists fall asleep on the subway.

I guess these people don't worry about being pickpocketed because the crime rate in Japan is so low. They just simply close their eyes and sleep in public.

On more than one occasion I would find myself sitting on the train, minding my own business, when I would feel something land on my shoulder. I would immediately turn my head to see that sure enough, a complete and total stranger was leaning their head on my shoulder while they slept on the train. Very strange, to say the least.

We continually wondered how these sleeping people knew when to wake up. Does the conductor calling out their stop wake them up? Are there different noises for each subway stop? Do they often miss their stop and just catch the subway going the other way when they wake up? These are questions I never got answered.

These subways are also remarkable clean. When you factor in the sheer quantity of people that ride them each day it becomes even more impressive. On that note, the entire country of Japan, from what I could tell, is extremely clean. I have probably never really seen a city as clean as Tokyo considering its size.

Another thing about all of the Japanese public transportation (subways, trains, etc.), is that they are extremely punctual. You can literally set your watch to the times the trains pull in. I took dozens of rides in my weeks in Japan and there was not one single train that was late. Not even by a minute.

The highlight of the public transportation system in Japan are the bullet trains, or the "Shinkansen." These high speed trains have been recorded as going as fast as 275-361 mph in testing, while I believe the ones currently in use generally run in the neighborhood of 180 mph. Whatever the actual speed is, it certainly was an exciting way to travel across Japan. We traveled to four different cities and were never on a train for over three hours. Extremely efficient, to say the least.

Kyoto

We arrived in Kyoto Saturday night. Tokyo is the current capital of Japan, but from 794 to 1896 the capital of Japan was Kyoto. Kyoto was one of the cities on the short list of potential cirites to drop of the Atomic Bomb in World War II, but it was spared due in part to its historic significance. As such, Kyoto was also largely spared from the firebombing in the war and is one of the few places to catch a solid glimpse of historic Japan.

Kyoto is known for its numerous Shinto and Buddhist shrines, gardens, architecture, and the presence of Geishas, which I will discuss in more depth in later posts.