Yokohama, Day Five: Goodbyes and Fast Trains

We had a pretty lazy last day in Yokohama, because the weather suddenly turned bone-chillingly cold, and because we had to get up at 5am the next morning to make it home. We did, however, brave the cold for a walk to a yakiniku and shabushabu restaurant. Vegetarians be warned, this is unsafe territory! Yakiniku is fried or grilled meat, and shabushabu (literally "swish, swish") is the sound effect of thinly cut strips of meat being swished in a bowl of broth. We ate mostly yakiniku. To the left, I am turning some meat on the little grill at our table. It's a ceramic or earthen bowl (shichirin) with wood charcoal in it, and the little metal plate on top gets continuously replaced as it dirties. The metal tube above it is for ventilation. For those who can eat wheat, there are delicious soy, miso, and garlic sauces to add post-grilling. I just put kimchi and garlic paste on mine, which I think is equally delicious.

The funniest part of dinner must have been when they accidentally brought us double dessert and we kept it. We paid a flat fee for all-you-can-eat, so it didn't matter how much we got. Nik polished off two sesame sundaes, while Matt had a sundae and two orders of sorbet. The wait staff got a huge kick out of the white people speaking Japanese, and probably out of how much dessert we ate. One of them took this picture of the four of us. She even took the metal tube down, something we hadn't thought of. From L-R: Matt, me, Megumi, and Nik.

The next morning we boarded our second shinkansen train of the trip, headed for home. Shin means new, kan + sen means main line. So it's the "new main line" through Japan. It's called a bullet train as well, and most are capable of around 200 mph. We took the slowest (and therefore cheapest) train from Nagoya to Yokohama. We made every stop along the way and topped our speed at 186 mph, and still made the journey in 2.5 hours. The equivalent drive is 4.5 hours for the 345 km route. This is roughly 214 miles or about the distance from New York to Boston. By Amtrak, this takes 3.5 hours on the fastest train and 4.5 on the slower trains. The cost on the fastest train is exactly the same as the bullet trains here. Are you jealous yet? Go give your governors (especially those of you in Ohio and Wisconsin) a piece of your mind.

The train itself looks like a spaceship, as you can see from the picture. It is sleek and shiny, and very quiet. Inside it is spacious, which is very nice for people with long legs. The seats recline nicely so you can sleep or spend time looking at the views. As for punctuality, they are superb. In short, these trains are what we wish airplanes could be: clean, efficient, spacious, on time, quick, and not subject to stupid and ineffectual security screenings. If America could get over its lobbies and actually do something for the good of its people, it would put bullet trains throughout the country. They make travel easier and more fun, which would encourage tourism and thereby create jobs. Just having the trains would create jobs, first in the building and then in the operating. Suffice it to say I'm a bit angry with how things are going these days. However, a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji, with an amazing bridge in the foreground, can make me temporarily forget my anger.