Our First Time on Japan’s Bullet Train Surprised Us!

Our First Time on Japan’s Bullet Train Surprised Us!

We’re taking the mighty Shinkansen, Japan’s 
world-famous bullet train. Capable of speeds upwards of 300 km an hour, this is the ultimate 
way to travel in Japan. We’ve taken a number of different transportation options on our trip here, 
but this is our first time taking the Shinkansen, and we couldn’t think of a better route than 
from Kyoto to Tokyo. Because if we’re lucky, we might just get a glimpse of Mount 
Fuji. But I’m getting ahead of myself. If you watched our last video, you’ll know that 
we just spent a few amazing days exploring Osaka, which might be our favorite city of this 
whole trip to Japan. We knew that close by was one of the most popular locations 
in the whole country—Kyoto. And we’ve been having such luck with the weather, 
so we decided to see if we could spend a couple of nights in Kyoto and 
see what all the fuss is about. So, we boarded the Hankyu Line from Osaka Station 
bound for Kyoto. There are a bunch of different options depending on what time you need to grab 
the train, but we took the limited express, which takes about 45 minutes and only cost 
us 400 yen each. The seats are first come, first serve, so if you want one on a 
busy day, make sure you arrive early. We arrived in Kyoto, got checked 
into our hotel, freshened up, and headed out to grab a little bite 
to eat. We wandered through Ponto, one of Kyoto’s oldest entertainment districts. 
It’s this vibey, narrow little alley running along the Kamagawa River. At night, it 
comes alive with lantern-lit tea houses, small bars, and restaurants where you might 
even spot a geisha hurrying to an appointment. I’m geeking out a little bit—we just saw our first 
geisha. This place is super popular, and lots of places were fully reserved. So, we found ourselves 
in an underground gyoza restaurant, which felt just our speed. After dinner, we were pretty tired 
and it was getting late, so we called it a night. But the next morning, we woke up to this. 
This was basically our entire day here. Our luck with the weather had finally run out. 
We hoped it would clear up and we could go see the iconic sites Kyoto is famous for, but 
hey, it just wasn’t in the cards for us. The next day, we had to check out of our 
hotel, and we tried to make up for lost time by heading to check out a few places. 
All right, so we’re at Nishiki Market, which is obviously a very popular place to go. 
We can’t do all the things we wanted to do—we had one full day, the rain thwarted us—but 
we were hungry. So, we figured why not knock out two of the most popular things before we 
head to the train station to catch our train to Tokyo. I’m definitely looking for some food, 
so as soon as we can find something delicious, we should stop and grab that and enjoy it in front 
of the shop as per the rules of Nishiki Market. Easiest transaction ever. That’s amazing. 
It’s very crispy on the outside, with a nice flaky panko batter, and then almost 
like mashed potatoes on the inside with a nice beef and pork flavor. It’s 
white bread with cream and fruit. This place was packed. We squeezed 
our way through the crowded halls just trying to do our best, but 
we just needed to get out of here. Next, we popped over to Gion. Gion is Kyoto’s most 
famous geisha district, known for its preserved wooden houses and traditional tea houses. Based on 
our experience at Nishiki, we thought this place would be way crazier than it was, but it wasn’t 
so bad. Still busy, though. We hear this is one of those places you just have to get here really 
early to get those good shots you see online. We only had a little bit of time before we 
had to head to the train station to catch our bullet train. And we have heard that the 
Shinkansen waits for no one. We wish we had more time in Kyoto. It’s really hard to rate 
a place you only spend a couple of hours in. There are so many people, and we can see why 
the locals are getting tourist fatigue. I mean, come on, don’t put your feet on the bus. It’s 
this kind of stuff that gets us all a bad rap. Now it’s time to leave Kyoto, 
make our way to Kyoto Station, and then hop on our first Shinkansen of our 
trip in Japan. To catch the Shinkansen in Kyoto, you’ve got to head to Kyoto Station. This 
is the main hub for all transportation in the city. There are a number of ways you can buy 
tickets for the bullet train. You can use one of these little machines, you can make your way to 
the ticket office, or you can just book online. We booked using Klook. It’s really 
straightforward, costs the same as booking in person, and you can even board with a QR code, 
so there’s no need to wait in line. You can book your trip or any other experience by scanning this 
QR code or going to the link in the description. We wanted to reserve our seats to sit on the 
left side for the best potential views of Mount Fuji. We sat in the ordinary car, not the 
green car, so our tickets were only 10,125 yen. We’ve only got about 30 minutes or 
so before we need to board our train, but we are starving. So lucky for us, there’s 
a familiar favorite right next to where we need to be. Timer’s ticking down—we have basically 25 
minutes before our train leaves. Hopefully, this is the embodiment of fast food. And I honestly 
can’t remember the last time we had McDonald’s. Ashley got a Big Mac and I got the Samurai Mac. We’ll just compare the two of 
them. It’s nice to have, you know, a classic as your control experiment, and 
then to try the local staple. Here we go. What makes a Samurai Mac a Samurai Mac? Teriyaki sauce and onions. Looks very simple. 
Very salty. Should have gotten a Big— We did it. Record speed McDonald’s 
run. Now we have to go find 11 and 12, which is right here. We’re 
good up these elevator stairs. We got this train and then one 
more train before ours gets here, so we’re going to make our way to at least 
the area where we should board. This will be pretty cool. There’s a Shinkansen. 
We’re looking at our first Shinkansen. They look so cool. They’re like 
little snooty-nosed trains. That’s the guy who’s putting his feet 
all over the bus. I bet he’s going to put his feet all over this Shinkansen, too. 
Okay, that’s one train down. We’re up next. We found our seats pretty easily and we were able 
to store our luggage in the overhead compartment. This train left on the nose—not a second to spare. 
You’ve got a hook to hang your bags, a foldable tray table like on an airplane, and a window shade 
to set the mood. We’re going so fast that you can’t see it on my speedometer app because it’s 
not open—278 km an hour. We just left the station. That’s cool. The Shinkansen even has free Wi-Fi, which is very nice. They’ve got 
information in English, Korean, and actually a bunch of different languages. I see 
Thai, and charging cords, so that’s really nice. There are three different levels of seating. 
There’s non-reserved, which basically just means you get a standing area, and if there are 
seats available, then you can take them. That’s a little bit cheaper, but for a thousand yen per 
person more, we opted for the reserved seats. It’s not quite as fancy as the green class, which is 
essentially first class, but it was considerably more affordable. Maybe we’ll do the green car one 
day. If you want to see us do that, let us know. But yeah, this is very comfortable. It is very 
quiet, as one would expect in Japan. We’re just going to hang out for the next two hours, watch 
the countryside. Pro tip: if you sit on the left-hand side going from Kyoto to Tokyo, there is 
a chance you might see Mount Fuji on a clear day. It’s not clear, but I’m feeling pretty confident 
we have a good chance to see it. We’ll see. I really hope so. You never know with mountains. 
They can be shy. They definitely can. We worked in Denali National Park and there’s 
only a 33% chance that you’ll see it, and we were very lucky that 
we got to see it quite often. Now it’s time to check out the bathrooms. 
Outside of the bathrooms themselves, you’ve got a sink area to wash up 
or check your fit. There’s a men’s restroom with a urinal and a sink, and 
then a second men’s and women’s restroom with a proper toilet and sink. All these fancy 
buttons for your bidet and a changing table. Now that I’ve done the dirty work, it’s 
time to relax and enjoy the reclining seats. These views are absolutely beautiful. But 
what’s even more insane is that we went from here to here in just under an hour. We 
are ripping through the Japanese countryside, and I’m still so taken aback by how efficient and 
smooth this train ride is. It’s really impressive. Our car was practically empty, 
so I took advantage of an open seat so I could get a window view 
of the countryside zipping by. I sat there just looking out the window 
at the scenery when all of a sudden— There she was. Fuji in all her glory. I called 
over to Ashley to see if she’d seen it, too. Best ride ever. It was the perfect time of day. We got to 
spend the last hours of daylight on our way to Tokyo with Mount Fuji in the sunset. Before 
we knew it, we were making our way into Tokyo. Welcome to Tokyo. That was super cool. 
Totally worth whatever we paid for it. I can’t remember how much the tickets were, but 
it was worth it. Yeah, that was pretty amazing. That was like the most Fuji Fuji could 
be. Yeah, I saw the emoji in real life. All right, let’s find our hotel. We’re staying 
in what I believe is the tiniest hotel of our whole trip so far, unless you count those cubes we 
stayed in in Fukuoka. We’re staying in the Asakusa area. I think we’re really close to a metro, 
but we’re going to figure it out right now. It’s 41 minutes of transit to get 
to where we need to go. All right, so it sounds like we have about a 9-minute walk 
until the next station and then a little bit of a ride, but that’s okay. I was getting really, 
really tired to the point where I fell asleep, but now I’m completely rejuvenated 
and very excited to see Tokyo. We’re taking something called the Joban Line. 
I’m not sure if it’s a train or a metro—looks like a train. The Joban Line looks like you can 
only enter a physical Suica card. You can’t use your mobile Suica card. But some information 
we found online leads us to believe that we can just tap off when we get off the train. 
I’m not 100% sure how it’s going to work, so we’re going to get on the train. We have 
cash, we’ll pay for the tickets either way. We’re definitely not going to ride for free. We’ll 
let you know how it goes. Always experimenting. Yeah, that was super easy. I’m honestly 
not 100% sure what happened when we got off the train into the station. We went to the IC 
tap-in/tap-out machine, tapped our Suica cards, and we got the infamous red light. So, 
we went to the little fare adjustment ticket booth area and we explained to 
the woman what happened. She was like, “Do you have your Shinkansen ticket?” And 
I was like, “Yeah.” And she just let me go. So, I’m not 100% sure what the deal is, but 
it leads me to believe that maybe we get free train transfer if we have Shinkansen 
tickets. That feels too good to be true. New record set. This is the largest 
city by population in the world. It is also the largest city we have 
ever been to—37 million people. We made the walk to our hostel. This was 
one of the only places we could find with availability during our time here. So, make 
sure you book in advance when coming to Tokyo. We checked into our tiny little room and got 
ready to go find some food. Welcome to our home for 5 days. We’re staying in the Asakusa area, 
which has a pretty awesome, vibrant nightlife. We wandered around a bit and checked out 
the offerings until we stumbled upon this welcome-to-Tokyo cultural performance. Luckily, there was a beer court outside, so we 
grabbed a drink and watched the show. Sounds dope. It’s pretty cool. We just came across 
this welcome-to-Japan performance and it’s so fun. And there’s birds and beers and I’m happy. Yeah. 
And our beers have latte art. One’s like a clown, one’s like a little bald man. We couldn’t have asked for a better experience 
on the Shinkansen. Buying tickets was a piece of cake, and the cherry on top was seeing 
Mount Fuji at golden hour through the window. We’ve got a lot planned in Tokyo over the next 
few days, and we’d love it if you subscribe to follow along on our adventures. If you liked this 
video, give it a like or a thumbs up to tell the YouTube gods we’re doing something right. 
And we’ll see you next time in Tokyo. Bye!

We finally rode Japan’s world-famous bullet train, the Shinkansen, and took it from Kyoto to Tokyo! Capable of reaching speeds over 300 km/h, it’s the ultimate way to travel Japan, and we couldn’t have picked a better route. Not only did we explore Kyoto’s highlights like Pontocho, Nishiki Market and Gion, but we also scored the golden-hour view everyone dreams of: Mount Fuji from the train window.

In this video, we’ll take you along for our first Shinkansen experience: how to book tickets online (we used Klook: https://bit.ly/klook-kyoto-tokyo), the difference between reserved vs. non-reserved seats and what it’s actually like onboard; Wi-Fi, charging ports, bathrooms, and more. We’ll also share tips like which side to sit on for the best chance to spot Fuji san.

From Kyoto Station food stops (yes, we even squeezed in a Samurai Mac at McDonald’s) to zipping across the Japanese countryside at 300 km/h, this was one of the smoothest and most exciting travel days of our whole trip.

If you’re planning Japan train travel, or just curious about the Shinkansen, this is everything you need to know. And trust us, seeing Mount Fuji from the bullet train? Absolutely unforgettable.

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*Best Hotels in Kyoto*
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ishibekoji Muan Ryokan: https://booking.tpx.li/C7bKUSN9
⭐⭐⭐ Smart Place Inn Kyoto Nijojo Horikawa: https://booking.tpx.li/p825z9Am – Where we stayed!
⭐ Rhino Hotel Kyoto: https://booking.tpx.li/IDGXtTJ1

*Best Tours & Experiences in Kyoto*
2-Hour Geisha & History Walking Tour: https://bit.ly/Kyoto-Geisha-Walking-Tour
3-Hour Gion Night Tour: https://bit.ly/Gion-Night-Tour
1 or 2 Day Kyoto Sightseeing Bus Hop on/Hop Off: https://bit.ly/Kyoto-Sightseeing-Bus

*How to Get Tickets for the Shinkansen*
JR Pass: https://bit.ly/Whole-JR-Pass
Kyoto to Tokyo: https://bit.ly/klook-kyoto-tokyo

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00:00 – Intro
00:19 – Taking the Local Train to Kyoto
00:53 – Kyoto Didn’t Go How We Planned
03:10 – Heading to Kyoto Station
03:59 – Trying the Samurai Mac for the First Time
04:40 – Making Our Way to the Platform
05:28 – Onboard the Shinkansen!
08:37 – To Fuji or Not to Fuji?
09:30 – Arriving in Tokyo
10:48 – Figuring out the Joban Line
12:23 – We Made it to Asakusa!

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#kyoto #shinkansen #japantravel