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We spent our last evening in Kyoto wandering the characterful Ponto-Cho area and alongside the Kamogawa river. No shortage of enticing bars and restaurants, but extreme shortage of menus in English. Well, we could still ingest the atmosphere. And we did buy some ice cream and sat by the river to enjoy it.
Next morning it was taxi back to Kyoto station to pick up the Shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo.
No slouch this one. The fastest Shinkansen, the Nozomi.
It still takes around 3 hours. I had hoped to catch a glimpse of Mt Fuji along the way but somehow managed to miss it. Had I been paying attention at the right time, it might have looked like this. Or this. I guess it depends which Shinkansen line you’re on.
The train was fairly empty. I did like the way the guards on the train bowed on entering each carriage. On reaching the far end they would turn to face back into the carriage, bow again and then turn back to the door to exit. There is a brief example about 10 seconds into this clip. Formality and ritual is very important to the Japanese, or at least it has been and we still see the legacy.
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