Story of the Japan Adventure

Riding Nozomi (fastest bullet train) is terrific. The whole experience is much more like riding a plane than a train, though there is more legroom and the landscape goes by much closer and faster. We missed the famous view of mount Fuji because it was a grey, drizzly day. So far, I am regretting the choice of back-pack over whelled luggage. We decided on packs because we were concerned about stairs everywhere, and there are stairs on and off every train platform, but there are also (usually) elevators. The stairs have been few enough that I could simply carry a roll-around up them for the short runs. A wheeled bag would be fine for the trip so far. The Japanese who are using luggage are all using luggage that is very tall and on wheels, like an American bag stood on it's end. It seems to be very convenient, and I am wondering why their bags and ours have evolved so differently; one would think that the same physical demands would yield the same result. It turns out that despite all my planning, we ended up on a 700 series train to Hakata rather than the faster 500 series, but we still went at astonishing speeds. We were in Nagoya less than 90 minutes after leaving Shinegawa (Tokyo), and in Hakata only 5 hours total travel time. It is only 2 hours by plane, but you need to arrive 2 hours early to get through security, and you spend 40 minutes or so collecting your checked baggage making air travel only about 20 minutes faster, and a whole lot less fun (on the train you are expected to get up and walk around, on the plane you stay in your seat).

Hotel Miyako is only 200 meters from the Hakata station, and clearly visible from the platform so getting there was trivial. It is a much fancier place than we had in Shinjuku, bigger room, broadband internet in the room, etc. We went to Canal City for dinner and shopping, it is stunningly beautiful, but very western and a lot like Pentagon City Mall in Arlington (though the design is more interesting). Shops are mostly Western chains, or Western-like. We walked along the old shopping street to Hakata River Rain (another stunningly modern shopping/office/hotel/theatre plaza). Along the way, we walked behind a pair of ladies in Kimonos so fine, and the ladies had such incredible poise and grace that we felt we were in a dream.