Tokyo day twenty three

Today we travelled on a bullet train to see Mt. Fuji. The trains were absolutely gobsmackingly amazing. Probably the highlight of the trip for me. Clean, cheap, efficient and VERY VERY fast (see the video from inside). We set off from Tokyo at about 10.23am and the 90.8 miles journey to shin-fuji (the shinkansen station at the city of Fuji) took 75 minutes. For the nerds it was an 300 series (top speed 168mph). We tried to travel on the N700 (the fastest train in the world, top speed 186mph and it goes around corners at 158mph) but didn't time it right. For a video of one of these in action check out these 1 2 amazing youtube videos taken by people with a lot of time and patience. The trains carry a lot of passengers but they run every 20 minutes and each train has 16 carriages (see second video of train leaving). The inside of the train was clean, spacious, comfortable. It was a bit like being on an aeroplane. We got more legroom than in business class on Japan Airlines. On the back of every seat was a helpful guide as to where everything was (even down to litter bins). Question is, why can't we have trains like this in the UK?

We were lucky enough to get a glimpse of Mt. Fuji. This is only possible at certain times of the year (cold days mainly) and only then early in the day. As we got closer to Fuji the clouds and mist built up and by the time we got to fuji city we could only just see the top. You can see Nic in front of Fuji at our closest approach in the photo. I kind of wish we had set off earlier but we did get up at 7.30 am (on a sunday) and we were very lucky to see what we did. The mountain itself is very beautiful and awe inspiring. It seems very tranquil sat there in the sky. It looks like the land has been squeezed into a point in the sky. It's easy to see why it inspires such devotion and has long been a symbol of Japan. It seems almost spiritual. All day I could barely take my eyes off it and I just wanted to get closer, closer. I can understand what makes people want to climb it. Nic even said she wanted to have a go.

Sorry if the video quality is bad. YouTube has messed it up. Even though a post from the other day using a video from the same camera with the same settings looked fine.