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Excerpt from www.jrpass.com/blog/what-is-the-hikari-shinkansen-train:
The Hikari Shinkansen is the train that brings JR Pass users between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka, stopping at important stops like Nagoya, Shizuoka and – of course – Kyoto!
What is the Hikari Shinkansen and why is it important?
The Hikari Shinkansen is arguably the most important train for Japan Rail Pass users. This is because it is the highest speed train that can be used with the pass on the Tokaido Shinkansen line, between the cities of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.
Important to understand here is that the Hikari is a train service, that basically means how many, and where the train will stop along the route. The Hikari service stops at most important station along the route. Other train services on the Tokaido Shinkansen are the Nozomi and Kodama services. The Nozomi being the fastest, as it stops at the least stations and Kodama the slowest, as it stops at (nearly) every station.
As mentioned, the JR Pass is valid on the Hikari Shinkansen and Kodama services but not the Nozomi train, so be careful to board the right train.
Seven years have passed today. Photo of a cemetery on a hill (I think) was taken from a fast moving JR bullet train last year.
The Great East Japan Earthquake of magnitude 9.0 at 2.46 pm on Friday 11 March 2011 did considerable damage in the region, and the large tsunami it created caused very much more. The earthquake was centred 130 km offshore the city of Sendai in Miyagi prefecture on the eastern cost of Honshu Island (the main part of Japan), and was a rare and complex double quake giving a severe duration of about 3 minutes. An area of the seafloor extending 650 km north-south moved typically 10-20 metres horizontally. Japan moved a few metres east and the local coastline subsided half a metre. The tsunami inundated about 560 sq km and resulted in a human death toll of about 19,000 and much damage to coastal ports and towns, with over a million buildings destroyed or partly collapsed. Source: www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-secu...
"No matter how devastating our struggles, disappointments, and troubles are, they are only temporary. No matter what happens to you, no matter the depth of tragedy or pain you face, no matter how death stalks you and your loved ones, the Resurrection promises you a future of immeasurable good. " - Josh McDowell
Many of my friends know that I am a huge fans of matcha. I simply eat and drink anything involve with matcha. One of goals in this trip is to visit Uji, one of my most well-known producers of green tea. Heading to Uji from Kyoto is quite simple and it only takes like 40mins.
I really expect a lot from my visit to Uji and it didn't disappoint. I ended up buying tons of products relate to matcha that I had to go back to Kyoto before heading to other places :D
Location: Uji, Japan (Kyoto)
My apologies for the sporadic posting of late - I've had my hands full planning my first trip back to Japan in 5 years! As some of you might know, I actually spent several years living there as a teacher, so this is also something of a (second-)homecoming. As this will be my first time travelling there as a non-resident, however, I can finally take advantage of the Japan Rail Pass, which provides unlimited train travel across the entire country!
This also means that I can visit the southern islands of Kyushu and Shikoku for the first time, before I start travelling far (far) northwards again, back to my former home of Akita. I’m not planning on bringing a computer so, in all likelihood, I won’t be able to post while I’m out there, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty of images to share once I get back. I'll also be posting my day-to-day photos over on Instagram while I'm away, so please feel free to join me there if you're interested in my following my travels. See you all in a month!
(Glasgow, 2015)