We Rode Japan’s Bullet Train for the first time!

definitely one of our best train moments that was so cool today we’re taking the Shinkansen bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo and it’s only going to take 2 hours to travel 475 km we’ve been on a lot of trains over the years with varying experiences oh my I’m so nervous this plane is this plane overnight trains in Vietnam and Egypt the Lao China Speed Train even a border crossing train in Thailand and of course Japan’s very own Sapphir Oto Rico luxury train look at outside so we’re excited to experience one of Japan’s fastest trains from the seats and the food to the views and the L and everything in between including one very big surprise oh we should be able to see Mount Fuji today because it’s clear all right it’s a beautiful morning yeah it’s so nice out i will say this is the best public transportation we’ve ever experienced in any country totally and I’d say hands down well the only one that comes close is Italy italy has really good public transportation we just realized like being here there’s nowhere you cannot go in this country without taking a train or probably bus but we never did take the buses it was all train but that is so rare to be able to say i was Oh look at that look at look at look at look at film film film that is so cool she just like did it herself too really i thought there’d be like an attendant or something we just We saw this setup in Soul Korea but we never saw it actually happen but they have elevators to get up and down to their parking garages instead of like the windy up and down that we see so often in the US i think it’s just a space thing but it’s so cool to watch because it’s so unusual what’ you say with you and a camera in your hand it takes forever to get anywhere did you grab the key of course I did oh my god she didn’t think I had a key she’s probably ready to think that but I did it’s just amazing how these little teeny tiny things are so interesting and fascinating when you don’t grow up with them does this have elevator yeah we just have to go over there should we do that or should we just walk down there’s a lot of stairs let’s just go to the elevator much easier going down there’s more typical good job honey nice come on baby one stop on the subway 5 minutes for the subway i think that’s honestly one of the longer waits we’ve had and it’s not complaining in any way that is just a testament to how speedy and efficient the train systems are here usually we walk down it’s like just a few minutes so it’s just been really convenient and it it just feels like you’re always hitting the right time oh we should be able to see Mount Fuji today because it’s clear ooh that’d be great we just have to remember no sleeping no promises sometimes they just smash through and sometimes they come in real cool and calm this should be fun you better get on there quick i almost went down that was ludicrous yeah we got out like where the wall was so it was so so squished those people were ready to take you out to get to where they need to go all right we did it i’m sure this train station will be super quiet right now good talk it’s perfectly rush hour right now you know it’s 7:30 yeah true true thank you so much i almost fell but I’m fine you know how many times I’ve heard that we need food do you have a good place in mine no thank you i got the Thank you i hate to say it but McDonald’s smells good you don’t hate to say it you’re right something smells so good like fresh bread i think it might be right here let’s go look yeah oh my god are they just like pumping it out oh my gosh it’s like a haven of bread oh that looks good let’s get some stuff oh this looks good okay what is that that looks good oh we should get that i mean they’re just putting fresh ones out I think no idea what it is this looks good doesn’t it yeah it looks like a egg can I just get fresh bread if you would like sure and then this thing that looks good is this what we’re having for lunch i think they always say you should not shop hungry do you want to get sandwiches too and I’m pretty sure this is why and she wants more the great thing is is you don’t have to buy food before you come to the train station they have rental boxes and like takeaway food convenience stores or a plate full of bread i got the Sara that was an impulse buy it smelled so good i think they’re pumping out the smell or something cuz Wow what happened says “Please insert both fair and express ticket.” Oh there you go good job babes i was wondering what these ones were for so he gave us three tickets overall per person and we do have to transfer once in Tokyo to get to the airport but the first one he gave us is like the overall ticket so it says Kyoto zone to our end destination i thought it was kind of just like a receipt like this is how much it is total and then he gave us each leg so we had to enter both of those tickets probably both times interesting yeah cuz you have your fair ticket and then you have your reserve seat so it says right at the top fair ticket and super express reserve seat okay I think we got enough food at the bakery so we’re not going to get a bento box today because it’s really not that long these trains go fast so it’s only going to be like a little over 2 hours for us to even get to the airport this is where you would get a benzo box and honestly the first time I came into a train station I thought they were like boxes of candy or like gift packages for like souvenirs but it’s food for you to eat and a lot of people eat it right when you get on the train everyone’s eating [Music] you buy that no what’d you get water soda cookies and Pringles nice she’ll be full in like I don’t know 5 minutes after she starts eating she tends to eat with her eyes it’s honestly such a trusting system it’s just so nice that it’s just such a self-regulated like society here it feels we haven’t seen that many police there’s no like security guards like monitoring the store self-regulating i love it here’s hot coffee oh my gosh you can get a hot cappuccino with cinnamon topping it even tells you like the flavor profile there’s a lot of options on here wow oh should we get like the Shinkansen blend it shows it making it oh here’s a countdown it’s actually a camera it looks like it doesn’t it it’s like you’re in a nice cafe with live music like there’s so many thoughtful touches on this coffee vending machine it’s kind of ridiculous there’s a countdown too this is awesome they like legit make a fresh cup of coffee in there that was amazing i would love to move to Japan for many reasons that coffee machine is one more reason really glad we didn’t stop at Starbucks i really wanted hot coffee but I’m really glad they had this vending machine which even if the coffee is horrible which I doubt it will be it was so entertaining i won’t even be mad let’s go drink your coffee and [Music] not bad it’s like similar to like a 7-Eleven coffee or something but it’s hot this cart makes noise coming they think of everything here they have so much information in both Japanese and English on the announcements and on all the signs so you know exactly where you’re going it also tells you on the JR app it’ll tell you what platform you’re going to what time it leaves and then you can see what number car or all the like stopping points it’s very organized very efficient there is also a waiting room if you don’t want to be outside you getting some BaskinRobins let’s do it i’ll get some what kind should we get i say mint chocolate chip that’s my favorite but I’m open to negotiation oh okay caramel ribbon though can we get just get two is that excessive it is but we can here we go again five you’re out of money not everything is touchscreen vanilla does it just drop down there with all those spoons yeah it does it’s so cute it’s sweety i’m like 8:30 in the morning are you eating it right now well it’s going to melt you That’s pretty cold i think you got a couple minutes there’s no time for ice cream when you’re waiting 2 minutes for the train the load times on these things are so fast very efficient that’s why they’re mostly 98% of the time always on time all right so before we show you another one of Japan’s amazing trains I’ve got to hand it to them japan makes travel look so easy but the truth is we were recently asked by a reporter if we have a travel horror story and the answer is yes worst we were robbed everything’s gone a close second I was pickpocketed we was robbed that’s a big reason why we opted for the electronics theft add-on with our safety wing insurance but it it doesn’t stop there because of course we’ve had both the last train of the night and the last flight of the night canled on us i.e travel delay which left us scrambling in the wee hours of the night one booking confirmed two more to go but that is exactly why we’ve been using Safety Wing Insurance for the past 4 years so we are on the essentials plan but they also offer a complete plan which covers routine healthcare so check out the link in the description to see which plan works best for your travel needs thank Safety Wing for teaming up with us on this video and for giving a sneak peek into our next upload back to the video perfect good job do you know how I knew the seats for ours how cuz there’s someone sitting in the other one i almost sat them with JR tickets you can book them at any J station and we have found that booking them in advance of your actual travel day is a really good idea because the lines at the JR stations for tickets are quite long that’s why when we were in Shimona the other day we saw really tiny lines so we booked him before we left there and the guy was super friendly and he put us in these back seats which had this like reserved luggage area because I the overhead storage is actually enormous we could easily put our carryons and our backpacks up there and I even saw some guy nearly break his back the other day on a train trying to lift this huge suitcase up there it does fit which is surprising then they also have this storage which is also reserved but I don’t think I’ve seen it in use that much on any of the trains we’ve been on his trains move fast and I don’t think that they would normally give me motion sickness but looking through a tiny little camera screen and moving like this does so I’m already feeling I’m not feeling good no I’m sorry but ice cream makes everything better right happiness in a cup good trains and train stations are one of the only places you can reliably find trash cans other than that they’d be pretty hard to spot the Japanese culture is just such a respectful one like one of the things that I think is just so impressive about this country like for example when the conductors move through the train every time they leave a train cart they bow it’s just really I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before so the seats are basic but they’re really comfortable especially when compared to an airport seat for one you actually have leg room like very generous amounts of leg room number two the seat does recline oh my gosh reclines really well actually so if Alicia stays up this whole train ride it’ll be it’ll be a bit of a miracle they have your basic fold down tray table there’s a little pocket to put your phone water garbage etc they have hooks to hang your stuff which most people it’s like a purse or a bag for us it’s a camera out in their padded seat so like I said pretty comfortable and the other thing we have on this seat is this arm this can come down if you’re sitting next to someone that you don’t know or in Alicia’s case so often she wants to take a nap on my shoulder just right back up oh um how about now just like that [Music] they have these nice shades so you can take a nap without the sun blaring on your face and they always have a little armrest water rest what is this called a ledge oh thank you shelf ledge hello i have a little ledge here the main difference for me between the Sapphire Odor Rico beside the actual seat and luxuriness luxur luxuriousness luxuriousness sure and the luxury aspect is the window sizes in the luxury train it was like all windows and here it’s like a airplane window albeit a massive airplane window but it is like an airplane window right and then because it can be very difficult to walk through the trains when they’re going they have these little knobs on the sides of all of the train seats so you can use them as just a general handrail or if you’re falling you can grab onto them okay obligatory bathroom tour standard sink do not drink the water but outside there’s another sink where you can wash your hands and clean up too oh should work oh toilet they do have toilet paper gloves sorry and the seat cleaner it was kind of a disaster there’s also lots of handrails in here because it can get a little bumpy also when the trains pass it be like from going to Kyoto to Tokyo we only have two stops the entire 2 hours and this is our first one but again they’re not long it’s like hop off hop on [Music] and 3 and 1/2 seconds later we are off so hopefully nobody fell asleep and missed their stop i don’t think we mentioned this but the configuration of the trains is three two we’ve been lucky enough to get the two side I think every time that looks good i think it’s like a breakfast croissant it’s like ham on it i think it’s like some egg salad with ham and cheese it’s really good oh there’s more plastic look at that do we know what this is no I don’t it just looked delicious and they’re putting them out because they had sold out previously it smells like maple syrup but it’s almost like gelatinized so it doesn’t move around probably because they’re selling it before you get on a train and there’s a little splice of butter i can’t think of what it’s called that pat huh pat of butter it’s a pat of butter you’re so sophisticated little pat of butter whoa no i’ll give you a bite cuz I love you whoa it tastes like a big old fluffy pancake with cold maple syrup on it it’s really delicious so good that maple syrup is so good this is going to be good it’s definitely custard i didn’t know if it was egg or custard it’s like a custard pastry wow that’s dreamy honestly I’m so glad we stopped at that place for some reason these are like all the flavors I didn’t know I was craving they’re so light it’s mostly crust on the inside too it’s like a really thin layer of the custard good is meringue the right word no it’s just like it’s it’s whatever custard they like fill donuts with that’s the flavor but I don’t know what it is so I took another bite of this and it has a little bit of like a cinnamon bun flavor too so it’s like a pancake cinnamon bun hybrid good combination that was perfect that was so good so we’re going through a tunnel right now which brings up the point of the nose of the train which based on appearance would look like it’s for aerodynamic purposes but it’s actually to relieve the pressure from the train when it’s going through a tunnel when we were on a speed train in Spain like our ears always hurt when we went through a tunnel and on these speed trains it’s not nearly as bad you really don’t even notice it while you can’t control the temperature on the train this one is a bit cooler than normal i feel like they’ve been really warm so far but if you’re in the window seat you actually have a couple of air vents right in between the window and this storage area that you can control where it directs that is true i didn’t even notice that it was pretty cool on here because every single train ride I’ve literally layered down to a t-shirt outside it’s really cold inside very warm i think one of the things that surprises us the most about these trains that we’ve just kind of grown accustomed to on other trains around the world is a cafeteria cart there just isn’t one and sometimes you will see people coming around to sell coffee snacks and other things but I think it kind of depends on where you’re sitting how soon you see them because in the trains we’ve been on we hadn’t seen them for quite a while if at all checking our map to see approximately when we might pass Mount Fuji not sure if we can see it or not but we’re we’re going to look is that it yeah [Music] that was so epic definitely one of our best train moments that was so cool it’s so clear and now it was perfect because now there’s like just all these clouds covering it but it was clear nothing obstructing a view other than obviously everything passing by on the train wow that was amazing i’m so glad we got to see that yeah me too it’s gone as fast as it came it’s gone that is like the highlight though we thought it was in like 15 minutes it was literally like 15 seconds and I’m so glad you saw it because I was like doing something on my phone and I would have missed it completely i would have sucked yes they do have free Wi-Fi on the train but it can be a little laggy which is understandable because there’s so many people on it but that’s why whenever we fly or going down a train I always download a bunch of Netflix so I’ll have something to watch and now thanks to our French Elliot I’m watching Brooklyn 999 and I love it okay cool go go go go go go go go no doubt never wait till the end of a train ride to go to the bathroom because that is when the line is the longest here we go i’m scared i’m going to get taken out so far so good had to take a real wide right there yeah sorry no that’s okay it’s like luggage NASCAR now we’re the next one i actually almost fell there that would have been very sad car six i feel like we’re always car six this happened like six times that’s where they put all the Americans just to keep us all in one place talk about it i’m still chilling no reaction you have to have reactions tell me you live in Europe without telling me you live in Europe you just buy the first piece of fresh bread that you see so good mhm [Music]

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🇯🇵 We took Japan’s famous Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo in UNDER 2 hours?! And yep, it’s 475 kilometers!! 🚄 From the smooth ride to the insane views, this bullet train experience was next level. Is it REALLY worth all the hype? Watch and see what we think, plus some tips for first-timers! 😍

Have you been on the Shinkansen before? Share your thoughts and experiences with us in the comments! 👀👇

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🎥 Vlog 250 | Filmed April 2024 | 🇯🇵 Kyoto, Japan

**Who is The Passport Couple?**

We’re Alicia and Nate, a travel-loving couple originally from San Diego. In 2020, we quit our 9–5 jobs to chase our dream of exploring the world, and we haven’t looked back since. We’ve now visited 47+ countries (and counting!) and share everything from real travel experiences and unique bucket list moments to honest budgets and behind-the-scenes adventures.

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5 Comments

  1. Another very enjoyable video i really knew a lot of things about Japan just from watching you take care of each other you guys

  2. Very enjoyable video. And to travel. Even your first time to rode the fastest
    Modern bullet train. The easiest and fastest going to your destination.
    Enjoy your travel going to the destination.
    And good day.. 🇯🇵🇯🇵😊

  3. took a Shinkansen ride (also for the first time) from Osaka to Hiroshima (& back) last month – 280km in 1.5 hour. wish we have this kind of speedy train everywhere esp back home in Malaysia 😂 totally agree with your thoughts @ 11:50 re: the bowing conductors