*NO CRAPPY MUSIC ADDED, JUST REAL TRAIN SOUNDS*
Join me on my first time experience of a bullet train and not just any bullet train but the mighty shinkansen, a name which i had heard during my childhood when i was fascinated by trains and the fastest train i have heard off was rajdhani and shatabdi express of India with speeds of 125 kph. that it self used to amaze me until i was introduced to a term called bullet train by my uncle. The term itself was enough for me to imagine that this train goes like a bullet, and that it runs at speeds of 250 kph and it was something i couldn’t believe at this age(8 to 10 yrs old i was) and ever since then it was a dream for me to get into this train and experience what 250 kmph feels like. As i grew older i was introduced to internet and then after few years i came across youtube, one day it clicked to me to lookup for a bullet train and without wasting anytime i did, and there it was the mighty bullet train, white in colour, whizzing past stations and seemed to be just a blur and not just that i came to know that these trains run at speeds of 300kmph which was formula 1 speeds for me and superbikes speed 🙂 years passed by and finally i one fine day i landed in japan, the day i heard of trip to japan bullet train clicked to me in first instant 😛 and i knew the time has come, that was the background and history part of my childhood dream.
Coming back to present day, i was all pumped up to experience the ride and I could barely sleep that night out of excitement, next morning I head to Shinagawa station, and ask the ticket salesmen who was very friendly btw, for a roundtrip ticket to any place which is 1 hour distance and from where I could get a train back immediately.
he suggested me to go till Shizuoka and return back on a train which was 30 minutes later(had it been in India I would have never considered booking a return ticket on a train which was 30 mins after I reach the place because delays are part of trains back home, but this was Japan. the place where trains run with the accuracy of seconds and not minutes) I instantly say him yes and get my ticket booked. I had almost an hour now for my train, and my ticket was so self explanatory that it told me which platform I need to go and what time, which coach and what is my seat number, once again I had reminded myself this is Japan, the land of discipline and systematic work, the country where people stand only on one side of escalator no matter how crowded it is, by leaving one side for those who are in a hurry.
i head to my platform and see bullet train first time in my life up come 😀 did some train spotting over there until it was time for my train, it was astonishing how punctual these trains were and as I have shown in my video a train which was supposed to arrive at 11:03 comes and stops on platform at sharp 11:03 and departs at sharp 11:04 without wasting even a single second.
finally, my train arrives and I take my seat which fortunately was a window seat, and the train felt exactly like aircraft from inside with much more comfortable seats and lots of space. At the designated time, my train departed and the acceleration was something which should be experienced but can’t be explained. initially the train crawled through the city area guess where it has sound and speed restrictions and soon as the city faded and suburbs started the train picked up with acceleration better than my family sedan 😛 and soon all I could see was a blur outside at landscape, my Samsung Note 5 which has one of the best cameras in mobile was unable to record a video except a blur, so I had to change it to 60fps only then I could see things in video.
initial 30mins were just sheer amazement and as I got accustomed to the speed, i started noticing the minor details which i had been watching in documentaries all the time about Shinkansen, like how the coach tilts/leans towards the curve direction, how you can feel a jolt as train enters a tunnel and the effect of air pressure as a train passes at full speed in opposite direction and I couldn’t believe I was living my dream.
I reached Shizuoka station, where I exit and re-enter to get to the other side of tracks to head back to Shinagawa, it is where I could experience flyby of two bullet trains at full speed, it was nothing but awesome and the speed was brutal.
i take the train back and enjoy the amazing scenery on my way back, the incredible Mount Fuji and those green hills all the way and small towns passing like by at high speeds.
in my opinion, this was the best experience of Japan, and anyone visiting Japan should definitely experience shinkansen at least once.
watch my 2nd experience of a bullet train, in China over here:
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TRAVEL WITH KHAN.
#shinkansen #bullettrain #japantrain
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