Howdy all, hoping today’s blog finds you well! Today I want to write about my shinkansen journey from Yokohama, just south of Tokyo all the way down to Hakata, also known as Fukuoka. The station is called Hakata station, as the city was originally two cities back in the day – Hakata and Fukuoka. They grew so big that they had to combine in the end and after much negotiation it was decided that ‘Fukuoka’ would be the name. However, the people of Hakata were less pleased with the result than those of Fukuoka and in some parts of town the name ‘Hakata’ is used.

This is important to know because if you are wanting to take a train to Fukuoka and say you’re booking online you might be surprised to find that there is no ‘Fukuoka’ station option. You need ‘Hakata’. However the station is in Fukuoka and central to the city, as well as connecting to a decent subway system as well. This station is one you can use to take trains out for day trips to places like Itoshima, Dazaifu and Nanzoin and others – these just happen to be the three places I went to!

Shin-Yokohama Station is the one you want for the Shinkansen rather than the main Yokohama station. This one is smaller and I think mostly or perhaps only deals with Shinkansens. They approach at serious speeds, and I spent a bit of time on the platform just watching them come and go.

I had pre-booked my ticket on the website 12GoAsia. I have used them before for train tickets in India and have not had a cause for complaint, although we didn’t get to choose our seats on the Shinkansen which I would have liked to have done. But such is life. I did get a window seat anyways so that’s what I wanted. The configuration in what I think they call second class was 3 on one side and 2 on the other. I would have preferred to be on the other side with two seats together as getting in and out of the window seat is trickier when you have to get past two people instead of one (who you are travelling with), but it wasn’t the end of the world.

The cost was just over 24,000yen per ticket, or around $240AUD, or around $158USD. The distance travelled in four hours and forty-one minutes was 1,071km. So the average speed was around 230km/h including stopping at around 8 stations. The train name was Nozomi 25. It looks on paper to be a super expensive train ride until you realise how far you go and the time taken. What would a flight have cost? Well maybe around $100AUD or $65USD at a guess? Flight time around an hour. But then you have to get to the airport, and from Yokohama to get to an airport it’s at least an hour if the airport is Haneda. Two hours for Narita, you need to check in an hour before, it’s actually quicker and frankly more exciting!!

The journey speeds through towns, cities and countryside and most train rides in Japan are pretty interesting and beautiful, this was no exception. The seat is comfortable, there is a power socket to charge your devices, and of course the train is on time. Toilets are decent too, this is Japan, a country that knows how to do toilets even on trains!

I wondered how they were going to cross over to the island of Kyushu. The majority of the trip was on the main Japanese island of Honshu, but Fukuoka is the biggest city on the southern island of Kyushu. I wondered if it would a bridge or a tunnel. A bridge seemed more likely, but if it was a bridge I missed it somehow! We did go through many tunnels at the time we would have needed to, and my GPS stopped working for a bit and suddenly had us on the island of Kyushu, so yeah… I’m still not 100% sure though to be honest!

Hakata station was seriously busy, and yet not a scratch on the likes of Yokohama or Tokyo stations. The Shinkansen line is incorporated into the main Hakata Station here, no separate station for the bullet train. I highly recommend getting to stations early in Japan. You need time to orientate yourself to the station and work out where your train is leaving from, Hakata is no exception.

The ride was smooth and easy though, and the 4 hrs 41 mins literally flew by. Japan Rail Passes do provide excellent value for money I should add and if we needed to take more Shinkansens during our short stay, I would have considered using one. As it was, not worth it for one journey. But there is money to be saved if you have a few trips and a Japan Rail Pass and use it wisely.

Thanks for reading today. Take care wherever you are in the world right now, and May the Journey Never End!