Taking Shinkansen from Tokyo

[dreaburn 0]

i'll be arriving in Tokyo next thursday night and plan to take the Shinkansen from Tokyo station to Nagano friday morning. Can people please give me advice about buying a ticket? The Hyperdia site says there's trains leaving early in the morning for 8000 yen. Will i be ok to just turn up the night before and buy a ticket at the station?

 

thanks in advance.

 

dave

[brit-gob 9]

You can buy the ticket 10 minutes before you get on the train if you want!

[damian 0]

Yeah, you may not get a reserved seat and so have to fight for one or stand. But no probs. Turn up early to give yourself a bit of WTF is going on here buffer time. Things don't run smoothly when you cant read. Like trying to read Nagano in Kanji on the rather busy looking electronic screens at the ticket counter. Get there at 6am, you'll easily be on a train before 7!

 

ps - it helps to know the name of the service. From memory they have names like asama21 or something like that. That way you wont end up heading towards Osaka at 300kmph. The bullet trains come and go very frequently so it is possible to get confused.

[TJ OZ 0]

You can book your ticket at Narita airport when you arrive. Have you organised a JR pass. If not have a look at the 4 day pass. You have to organise it in Oz. As le spud said give yourself a bit of time as Tokyo station is huge.

[dreaburn 0]

Thanks. i'll be going as prepared as possible. i even found a layout of the Tokyo train station so i know which platform the Nagano Shinkansen leaves from.

 

my travel agent here had a 7 day JR pass but it was way expensive - Y31,500. Compared to the each way cost of 8000. i'll be at Nagano for 7 days so does that mean i would need a 7 day JR pass? Or does it work like a Eurail pass where you can buy a 2 day pass and use it on any 2 non-consecutive days?

 

dave

[gamera 0]

dReaburn, you can use a flexible 4 day pass on any non-consecutive days if it's within a "MONTH".

[alferg 0]

if you are just going there & back, its not worth getting a 7 day pass. checkout the flexi 4-day pass though - it may be cheaper, as it works on the airport train too.

 

you will have no problems finding the shinkansen - plenty of staff at tokyo station speak english, there are english signs everywhere, & the ticket machines have english instructions (although you're better off going to the ticket office, to avoid any error)

 

the shinkansen ride is awesome (i caught it nagano-tokyo last week for the first time) but if you want to do things the easy (but slightly slower) way, use the taxi-bus. door-to-door airport to hakuba for 10,000 yen. we used to narita>nozawa, & it was very easy, especially after an overnight flight.

 

http://www.chuotaxi.co.jp/air/mail_nr.html

 

choose "make reservation in english", copy/paste the details & email them. Koide who works there knows english & is very helpful. otoiawase@chuotaxi.co.jp

 

& there is good travel info here (for nozawa, but some of its relevant to you)

 

http://www.ecoworld.com.au/asahiya/pages/route.html

 

hope you get some snow... its not looking great right now

[number9 0]

Wow, that's a great service. Should start recommending it to every person who asks about Narita => Hakuba (or other Nagano destinations) who are visiting Japan for the first time just to ride. But damn, Shinkansens are fun.

[gamera 0]

But a lot of tunnels, often can't see anything. Only in the dark. I prefer old express like Azusa.

[alferg 0]

gamera, after the overnight flight from australia, you'd probably be asleep anyway

 

i liked the tunnels - they are so long!

 

btw, sorry i didnt come to visit while in hakuba - it's a hard town to get around in, without a car.

 

i reckon its totally the way to go after a long flight, when you feel like a zombie. you just call them when you exit customs, & they collect your group in a mini-van & away you go! although we were lucky that our group was large enough to fill the bus - for smaller groups, you'd possibly have to wait for other flights until the bus filled, but i think they have a 2hr max wait.

 

also, the driver was pretty scary, passing other cars with inches to spare & tailgating, but it seems most japanese drive like that anyway!?

 

we caught the shinkansen back, just for the experience. those things r so faaaast.. it was saiko

[gamera 0]

Yep. France, Japan, Germany are only countries which have developed those fast trains by their own skills which can run at 300kms/h. Now some are interested in which country of the 3 starts driving faster than 300kms/h.

I think 300kms/h is enough though....

 

Don't want to get involved in any accidents.

[number9 0]

There's that maglev in Beijing that's even faster.. not Chinese technology though.

[gamera 0]

I think it's German?

Italy is the 4th country developping a fast train system by their own skill. Their speed limit is 200+ something, not 300kms/h. The other day I saw an ad for italian fast train and their trade was to provide excellent meals in the train which our JP shink missed

[alferg 0]

i read here that japan has the fastest maglev too

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuo_Shinkansen

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JR-Maglev

 

it looks awesome

 

[number9 0]

The one in Japan's not in service though, just running test tracks.

 

Anyone been on the Beijing maglev?