By special arrangement, we had our “traditional Japanese breakfast” a half hour before the upstairs restaurant actually opened. Again, a picture menu frought with soy products, but I was not bashful about pointing to each item and asking our server if “sho-yu” was in it.
Then I ate enough smoked/dried mackerel and wrapped my own seaweed around sticky white rice to feel full and satisfied. Their concept of “hard boiled eggs” exactly matched my concept of luke-warm, runny-raw eggs, so I didn’t have one, and neither did Miriam.
We had about a minute to spare to catch the 8:00 Hozan Bus from a block above the hotel. Once at Odawara Station, we ignored the familiar “Hikari” nickname of the train, which is not on any signs, and followed the signage for Shinkansen, the formal name of the Bullet Train.
The ticket office was right outside the entry gate for the trains, and we easily exchanged our 2:08 tickets for a 10:08 train, adding 4 hours to our afternoon in Kyoto, thanks to information offered by our hotel desk clerk the previous day.
The speed at which the trains blasted by was truly dizzying. Miriam passed the time playing games on her tablet, but I could hardly focus on this update, for all the different languages coming at me, Spanish being the most dominate at our current location.
We met an elderly couple from Liverpool on the platform. Of course, he’d been a teacher for 38 years! They said Hakone felt last week’s earthquake, and the buildings swayed, but no damage. They were interviewed by a TV journalist and asked if increased earthquake activity in the area had made them consider canceling their trip. Obviously not!
The trains are timed like clockwork, just 3-5 minutes in each station. Sixteen cars on each train. Only cars 15 and 16 have reserved seats. Cars 7, 10, and 15 allow smoking.
The ride was deceptively smooth, considering you’re hurling through space at over 300km per hour! The seats were like airline seats, five in a row with a center aisle. The leg space amazingly ample. No seat belts, no doors on overhead bins, and window shades pull down as in airplanes.
I was glued to the window, enjoying the changing scenery, from mountainous “country” living, back to city high-rise life. The mountains were foggy and gray, but we expected, and got, beautiful sunshine by the time we disembarked in Kyoto, shortly after noon.