Two insane travel moments, part 2

in which things are lost and found

Japan is deeply thoughtful. Everything about the country is deliberate and considered. There are systems within systems and traveling there as an English speaker who is illiterate in Japanese is both shockingly easy and extraordinarily difficult. The trick is learning the system quickly.

So here’s the story of the first time I rode a bullet train in the country.

Car 8 is my nemesis

First, you have to get a ticket at a machine — no worries, nearly all machines in Japan have mulitple language options and English is particularly highlighted and easy to find.

You pick your time of departure. You pick your class (as an American traveling with a JR Pass, a perk only afforded to people with a non-Japanese passpor which allows unlimited travel on one particular train line, I chose the “Green Car Option” which costs a little more at the outset but lets you ride in first class cars.) Okay, so you chose your destination, your time, your car, and now you choose a seat number that corresponds to your baggage size (I was travling with a suitcase one size up from carryon which meant I had to ask for oversize luggage space — all inside the car, all easy to find and use).

The good stuff: Japanese train stations are massive shopping meccas, some are multi-level and all have cafes, shops…