Bullet trains are a load of bollocks

Took the Japanese bullet train last week, the legendary shinkansen. The shink has a great reputation: luxurious, swift, silent; wonders of modern technology.

Well, like so many things in Japan, I can report that the reality is sadly different.

I was told that riding the shinkansen was likely flying in an airplane. Maybe, if you are flying Aeroflot in the 1970s. The shink from Osaka to Tokyo was old. It was extraordinarily shabby. Stained seats and faded curtains. Scratched windows. A food trolley whose legs were held together by bits of tape. The haggard crone pushing it was flogging cup noodles and slimy sandwiches made of white bread with the crusts cut off. Decades of tobacco smoke had made the cabin smell like death. The seats were cramped, dingy and lumpy. This was not modern technology. It looked like a film clip from the 50s.

Yes it is swift, but far from silent. The noise comes not from the train itself but from the annoying intrusive announcement before and after station stops. It was a lot worse on the much newer tsubame, the shink that goes from Fukuoka to Kagoshima. That train has so many announcements that, far from being rested, you will have cut your wrists an hour before arrival.

Take my advice: catch the bus. It is comfortable, relaxing and half the cost.