First time on Shinkansen

It is my first time riding on shinkansen (新幹線). It is like a jet plane on tracks! We were heading to Kakegawa (掛川) for a brief visit. Kakegawa is close to the country side and is known for their tea leaves. Before talking about Kakegawa, I am going to show you my ride on the shinkansen.

We went to Shinagawa Station (品川駅) to get on to the shinkansen. Shinagawa Station is a bit smaller than Tokyo Station, so it was a bit easier to navigate inside the station.

Even though Shinagawa Station is supposed to be a smaller station, we still found it pretty big.

This is the JR ticket office where we got our JR Passes.

For those who don’t want to get the JR Pass, or if you are only traveling to one other destination, you can always get Shinkansen ticket at the station as well.

Love the schedule display boards at the platform. High quality display helps everyone to find where they need to go and in turn reduce the time and effort needed for staff to take care of customers.

Even the smaller display looks very clear and easy to read.

The seats are much bigger than those on a 747 airplane. We could put our luggage in front of our legs and still have room to spare.

There are lots of good views to be had. If you are traveling west at this time of the year, I would suggest sitting on the right side of the train as it is less glaring and can see more.

Got to love the train operators. Their uniform is so well designed and it is nice to see that there is so much respect to this profession.

Lovely trains. Did you know Shinkansen started its commercial operations almost 50 years ago!! Yes, it started its operation in October 1964.

The Shinkansen we took stops at some stations and is not a direct train between two destinations. At some stations, it stops for only a couple of minutes.