Nothing But A Blur From A Bullet Train*

11 April 2010
Our last full day in Japan – most of the morning spent on a Shinkansen bullet train from Okayama back to Tokyo. We shall probably have to wait until tomorrow’s news to find out how many people will have committed ritual suicide today. Why? Because the almost unthinkable happened the Shinkansen were running late!! And not just the Hikari (the sort of bullet trains we can use with our JR pass) but also the Nozomi - the sleekest and fastest of the bullet trains which travel at an average of 270kph which were departing up to 20 minutes late – 10 seconds is usually the start of an official investigation! Strangely ours left 10 minutes late but arrived in Tokyo exactly at the moment it was supposed to.
We are still very unsure about our feelings for the country. We have warmed to it a lot and love the culture we have experienced in many of the places we have visited, the superb public transport, the ceramics we have seen and handled and the shopping and so much else but still find so much of it so alien – all the bowing (even the conductor and the ‘trolley dollies’ on the train), all the shouts of ‘welcome’ (well we think that’s what they’re saying) when we walk into shops and try as we might we just cannot get our heads around a language that has three alphabets. One of the alphabets (Kanji) has thousands of characters each of which can be pronounced differently depending on the context in which they are used and the other characters with which they are combined. At least the other two alphabets only have 46 characters each. The other stumbling block has been the food – we found it very strange that in the country of Zen Buddhism and macrobiotic food, vegetarianism is really not understood. One set menu we chose that was listed as ‘vegetarian’ came with raw tuna! It is possible to get simple stuff like noodles, tofu, miso and vegetable tempura but we have got rather bored with this diet. It is possible to eat very good veggie food but we have had to go to pricey restaurants or restaurants attached to Zen Buddhist temples which are also quite pricey. Chopsticks are not a problem and in fact we are bringing home several sets. At times we must appear very rude because we just cannot believe the amount of slurping that comes from the next table in a restaurant we just look but quickly realise it is the norm – as is eating a fried egg at breakfast with chopsticks or a small pot of jam with chopsticks or miso soup, rice porridge and fish for breakfast.
But back to the train journey – today was fairly clear and bright so we were able to see Mount Fuji as we passed across the plain about 100km from Tokyo. A truly magnificent sight, even though the base was surrounded by thick cloud the snow-clad peak was beautiful.

Back in Tokyo we have repacked – strange that despite buying hardly anything we need two more suitcases than we started out with.
This will be the last blog from the r-t-w trip as we fly out of Tokyo tomorrow morning but there will be more postings – we shall say many thanks to everyone who has helped make this trip such a good one and perhaps give some tips and hints for anyone wanting to make a similar journey.
Until then, farewell and thanks for having been with us all the way, we have appreciated your company.
Gregg and Chris