How to Find your Platform for the Shinkansen 🚅 Station Walkthrough in Japan

How to Find your Platform for the Shinkansen 🚅 Station Walkthrough in Japan

Join me on a quick walkthrough of the station in Japan, finding our train, including which signs to look out for and how to know where to queue up on the platform. This station is less hectic than the larger stations like in Tokyo, but the process is basically the same. We’re starting off in Kumamoto, home of Kuamon. Now, you’ve got to have snacks for the Shinkansen because you’re allowed to eat on long-distance trains. So, let’s start off with a quick look at the amazing food options. Kumamoto station is actually really nice. There’s an excellent market of omiyag that’s local souvenirs and specialtities and places to eat. There’s a kuman eken and you get to keep the box. This is a whole shop for mustard renon which is a kumamoto specialtity. This is another Kumamoto specialtity. I think it’s a deep fried fishcake. We’re just looking through the food options at the station and this is so much better than any station in the UK. There’s loads of places to eat. There’s a sushi place. There’s Mossber. There’s some souvenir shops up front. There’s a bakery. There’s all this as well. Yoshinoya. There’s a pharmacy down there. Very useful. And here’s a nice display of Sakura stuff for cherry blossom season coming up. There’s a Kumamon one cup sake in the convenience store. Amazing. So, let’s do a walk through of what it’s like finding your platform and taking the train. We’re taking the Shinkansen from Kumoto to Hakata. Our train is the Mizoho 606. So that’s what we’re looking for on the signs up there. There’s a sign to the Kushu Shinkansen entrance. So that’s the way we need to go. And there’s another sign there saying forward and to the right. Taking the Shinkansen at these smaller stations is much less overwhelming than at major stations. And it feels a lot more relaxed. There’s always lots of signs and all the signs you need will be in English as well as Japanese. There we are. Kushu Shanken entrance straight ahead this way. And there’s the ticket gates. And the first one on the top left, Mizuho 606. That’s our train at 11:16. It’s on track 12, which it says is to the left. I’ve got my Kushu rail pass. I can put that through the ticket gates. You can do that with a normal JR pass as well. There’s a sign to track 11 and 12 to the left. There’s a lift there if you need it or stairs this way. Ah, escalators around the corner. Can you believe how clean the station is? Bye-bye, Giant Kumamon. Track 11 and 12. Our seat reservation is in car 4, so we’ll be looking for signs to that on the platform. 12 is on the right. And you can see the name of our train up there as well, Mizoho 606. It says on the display there, it’s an eight car train. And down there, you can see at the top it says eight, an eight car train. And this is where you wait for carriage six. We’re looking at the numbers for the eight car chain. This is number four. And that’s us. And there’s a line showing you where to queue up on the platform. It’s very organized. This is a simpler example than some of them because Kumamoto isn’t the largest Shinkansen station. It doesn’t have a whole lot of platforms, but the principle is the same whichever Shinkansen station you’re at. It also says the train number on the train, Miso 606. So, we know we’ve definitely got the right one. Let’s get on. Our seats are 12 A and [Music] B. And we’re on. We don’t have a seat with extra space for luggage today. We’ve only got the mini suitcase with us cuz we did tack in this morning to send our big suitcases. So, this is a hand luggage size suitcase that we just put by the side. It probably would fit easily on the overhead luggage rack, though, if you wanted to. It definitely would. I’ve got a Hokkaido red bean paste bun. I hope that was useful. There’s more help with taking the train in Japan in my guide book. And I also have videos about traveling with luggage, buying train tickets online, and regional rail passes. If you have any questions, put them in the comments, and I’ll do my best to help you out. And I’ll be back next week with more Japan videos every Thursday. [Music] [Music]

What it’s like taking the shinkansen at a smaller station in Japan, including a station walk-through, which signs to look for and how to find your platform.

✨ Get my Japan guide book: https://cakeswithfaces.co.uk/product/japan-travel-guide-book/

It’s less hectic taking the shinkansen at smaller stations like this, outside Tokyo, but the process is the same. This is a walk-through at Kumamoto Station in Kyushu, taking the shinkansen to Hakata Station in Fukuoka. First we take a look at the food options at the station, including a cute Kumamon ekiben (station lunch box). Then I’ll show you the route through the station to the platform, and what to look out for on the signs, which are all in English as well as Japanese, so there are no problems with the language barrier!

▶️ SUBSCRIBE for Japan travel videos every Thursday.

🌈 CAKES WITH FACES MERCH (worldwide shipping): https://www.cakeswithfaces.co.uk

✨ FOLLOW CAKES WITH FACES:
http://instagram.com/cakeswithfaces
https://bsky.app/profile/cakeswithfaces.co.uk
https://www.threads.net/@cakeswithfaces
http://www.x.com/cakeswithfaces
https://www.facebook.com/cakeswithfaces

00:00 Intro
00:27 Food at the station
01:16 Station walk-through
03:47 Getting on the train

#japan #japantravel #shinkansen #bullettrains #japanesetrain #japantravelguide