Your Typical Experience on Japan’s Popular Sleeper Train

Your Typical Experience on Japan’s Popular Sleeper Train

All right, good morning everyone. Hope you’re having a fantastic day so far. Today I’ll be taking Japan’s only daily operated sleeper train. I’m here at the iconic Tokyo station because this is the first station of that sleeper train. It’s so nice at night. These lights are way brighter than my future. Nice. This is my first ever time riding the sleeper train, so I’m very excited. I’ve always watched YouTube videos about it. Thinking that you’re sleeping on a train just feels weird. So, in this video, I’m going to be showing you my experience taking this train. I’m going to be showing you the room, and hopefully you’ll enjoy it as well. All right, I’m here at the platform. A lot of things happened before I got here. Uh, the first thing was that I got lost trying to get Starbucks. It took me 30 minutes just to find a Starbucks and order my Frappuccino. On the bright side, that killed quite a lot of time. The next train that’s going to arrive in this platform is the Sunrise Izumo and Setto at 9:50. It is 9:23 p.m. right now. Oh, what the heck? It comes this early. Oh, here it is. Oh my god. The sunrise is more. Wow. Well, here’s the front part of the Sunrise Express. Okay, so I got my ticket out. I’ll be sitting in number 21 of car 2. It is a single room, which is the most common room for this sleeper train, and it’s non-smoking room, thankfully. It says it’s not in service, still, so I might have to wait a bit until they actually open it. Oh, just when I said that, it’s getting ready. There you go. Okay. [Music] Wow. Here’s the bathroom. One to 29 is the upper deck and 1 to 14 is the lower deck. 21 is on upper deck. Right here. This is where I’ll be staying in. Okay, before I get too excited, I’m going to make sure this is the right room because yeah, I’m on 21, but I have to make sure this is car number two. Okay, this is car number two and this is 21. And yeah, car number two. 21. Okay, this is the right room. I’m here. Woohoo. All right, as for the room size, it’s pretty spacious. It’s not as bad as I thought. And this isn’t even the most spacious room, right? There’s single deluxe and single twin. It kind of reminds me like a capsule hotel, but obviously it’s way better because you get the view of the train over here. It comes with pajamas. It comes with a cup. That’s cool. I guess that will be all the amenities for this. If you get the single deluxe, you get like everything like toothbrush, toothpaste, and tons of like amenity stuff. So, I brought my toothbrush today. So, yeah, here are my two tickets. One is the josha, so the base fair ticket, and the one on the left is the Tokyen or the Shindai, the express, the sleeper express ticket. I know I said I showered, but I’m a bit sweaty already because first off, I I sweat whenever I’m like stressed out or I I panic a bit. And I tend to panic at Tokyo Station every single time I come here because I either get lost or I get overwhelmed by the number of people. So, here’s a Starbucks vanilla Frappuccino that took me 30 minutes to get. This is probably the most rewarding Frappuccino I’ve had in my life. All right, so here’s the overall room tour. Here’s a table area. It has enough space for me to leave my headphones, my food, my Starbucks bag, and all that stuff. There’s the electric cord over there. As for behind me, here’s the hanger, my bed, and there’s some space over here where you can leave your bag, and also comes with slippers. And there’s the buttons for the lights, and you can apparently listen to the radio here if you plug in your headphones here and play around with that. And here is the clock. 9:45 a.m. And there’s a heater. And last but not least, here’s the window. Here’s what the window view looks like. It is a Wednesday night today, so there’ll probably be a decent amount of people leaving around this time because they just finished drinking or some of them even finished work. This feels very awkward. Should I close my window? I’ll just close my window and I’ll open it once the train starts running. Okay. Another question I have is, does this train have wifi? Most of express trains have Wi-Fi. It does. Okay. It’s moving. Maybe I should go. It’s kind of hard to find a good angle to film this, huh? Maybe I have to turn off the light. Let’s see. There you go. Oh, there you go. That’s a much better view. Wow, another bullet train. There’s like this unfortunate dilemma for the sleeper trains. You want to stay up as much as possible so you can enjoy the view, but at the same time, if you don’t sleep, you’re going to like be so tired because this train will arrive at Takamatsu at 7:20 a.m. All right, editor Tanner can put the text down here. I’m going to change to my pajamas. Now, today I just did my best to not drink any coffee so that I can sleep well. And I think that strategy is working because I’m already tired. Oh, it doesn’t even have any pockets. That’s not too convenient. I’m just going to take a walk. Attention. We will soon be making a reach. Oh, wait. We just got to Yokohama station. Oh, there’s another area over here. I think this is where you can brush your teeth. I probably put on my pajamas a bit too early. The door just closed from Yokohama. And after Yokohama, I think it’s going to go to Atami. Good time for me to enjoy a nice view like this. I’m lying down right now and the bed is not bad. It’s more comfortable than I thought. I remember taking the night bus and that being an absolute disaster. I couldn’t sleep because there was no privacy and people were snoring and the lights will turn on quite often because it’ll take you to those break areas. Crap, I’m sleepy already. I got to do my best to stay up a little bit longer. Sunrise chart over here shows what room is in what car. So I’m in car number two. So there’s only single and single twin. I think we saw the solo for number three. Number four is a single deluxe. This is the best room. And then B sunrise twin. And then car number five and 12. It’s B single. and then No, no, Sussik. So, these are the ones where it’s not a private room. It’s like an open space. Go to car number five. It’s going to be quite a walk from here. Hopefully, there’s I don’t know if there’s many people there. It smells like cigarettes in here. This might be the smoker’s room. These are it. But most people are already there and it’s covered with curtains. So, I’ll just post an image. I’ll put an image over here. Here is the vending machine. Uh, I was going to say water is pretty cheap, but also pretty small. And they already have coffee, water, tea, Coca-Cola, and an energy drink. Oh, and here’s the shower room. But you need the shower cord to use it right now. This is the shower cord vending machine. But it says over here sales in it’s pretty competitive I heard. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to give you much of a tour for other rooms. Oh, what the heck? So, my plan is to stay up until station and brush my teeth and sleep so I can wake up a bit early so I can see the Morning view of Okama Station and the bridge that takes you to Takamatu station. I heard that view is nice. Oh, holy crap. It’s kind of hard to tell from here, but the ocean looks very terrifying. I think this is Yeah, we are passing by Nepal station now. [Music] All right, I finished brushing my teeth. It’s still 11:16 p.m. and we are almost at Aamei Station. So, I think I’m just gonna edit my other videos. Okay. I thought they had Wi-Fi here, but they don’t. The JR Wi-Fi I connected earlier when I was at Tokyo Station. I think that was like the Wi-Fi specifically at that area. It’s not the Wi-Fi for this train. The video I’m editing is the Kashin Ken video. You can watch that later on if you haven’t already. I could still edit, but I think it’ll be more important for me to sleep so I can wake up on time so I can enjoy the morning views. All right, I’m going to go sleep now. So, I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Okay, I I literally just woke up. It’s making announcements say the next station is Okama. Wow, what a view, huh? vehicle freaking wall. I heard that this train can get delayed because of the weather or because it it hit an animal, but as of right now, it seems to be running normally, so that’s good. As for my sleeping experience, overall it was weird. There were times where I was having a hard time sleeping because the train would be shaking often. But then at the same time, there were times where the train felt super smooth. So, I was able to sleep well. I did wake up like 2 to three times. I thought I would be okay without turning on the heater, but I was absolutely wrong. It got pretty cold at like 3 to 4 a.m. All right, we are here at Okama Station. Next time I take this train, I’m going to make sure I get off Okama Station so I can see the decoupling process. It is 6:30 a.m. on a Thursday right now. So, you’ll probably see people commuting to work or school. Oh, they finished decoupling and this train will leave right [Music] now. This is the sunrise set bound for Takamatsu. The next stop is Kima. After leaving Kima, we will be stopping at Sak. Here we are. Wow, this is so cool. This is the sunrise set bound for Takamatsu. The next stop is Takamatsu. This train was running for almost 10 hours. Jeez. Shout out to the train drivers and conductors during this during like irregular hours. Without them, these trains wouldn’t be possible. I really appreciate them. I’m going to lie down for the last time. Wait, this makes me sleepy. Maybe I’m going to stop. Okay. Well, thank you for call to room 21 single room for this amazing experience. All right, we just arrived at Takamatu Station. Here’s a Sunrise Express in the morning. There’s probably going to be way more people taking a picture of it before going. All right, that’ll be the end of the video. Hope you enjoyed it. I really want to ride this train again next time to head over to Izimo and to take the single deluxe so I can show you that cool experience, too. The algorithm thinks she’ll like this video over here. So, feel free to check that video out as well. All right, bye-bye.

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📍 Takamatsu Station:
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Don’t read this caption:
I finally rode the Sunrise Express Japan for the first time, taking the famous overnight sleeper train from Tokyo to Izumo. The Sunrise Izumo and Sunrise Seto are Japan’s only daily operated overnight trains, making them a must-ride for anyone interested in Japanese sleeper trains. In this video, I’ll show you what it’s like to experience the Sunrise Express Solo room, the most common private room type, and give you a full look at the entire Sunrise Express ride.

Starting at Tokyo Station, I’ll walk you through the boarding process, what to expect on the train, how sleeping arrangements work on an overnight train in Japan, and what it’s really like riding the Sunrise Express overnight. Whether you’re curious about traveling Japan by train, booking a spot on the Sunrise Seto, or wondering how an overnight sleeper train in Japan feels compared to hotels, this video has everything you need.

I’ll also talk about how to book the Sunrise Express in Japan, tips for getting a Solo compartment or nobi nobi seat, and what makes riding the Sunrise Express such a unique experience for travelers and train enthusiasts. If you’re planning your next Japan travel adventure and want to know about Tokyo to Izumo trains, overnight train rides in Japan, or just love exploring Japanese trains, this first-hand experience is for you.

The Sunrise Express sleeper train is not just a ride — it’s one of the last chances to experience real overnight train travel in Japan, with stunning views, cozy rooms, and a smooth journey across the country. Come ride the Sunrise Izumo sleeper train with me and see why it’s one of the best ways to travel across Japan!