I’m starting our travel tales with my two favourite things from Japan: the trains and the toilets.

The trains were always on time, and they ran frequently.  On the underground, if you missed one there’d be another one along in a few minutes, often accompanied by a satisfying little tune on the platform to announce its arrival (this tune would sometimes play inside the train too as it pulled into the station). 

There was no bun fight on the platform as the train pulled into the station.  Instead, people would queue up behind carriage numbers on the platform in an orderly fashion and let passengers disembark before getting on the train.  It ran like clockwork.  Journey planning and activity planning was so easy when you knew the trains would arrive exactly when they were supposed to.

I’d heard stories from my Dad about ‘pushers’ in Tokyo, or Oshiya; professionals who push people onto crowded trains.  Whilst we didn’t see any Oshiya on our visit, during rush hour I did notice people ‘push’ their way onto crowded trains, finding gaps for a few more bodies where before it seemed there were none.  This kind of behaviour would earn you a few tuts and some baleful scowls on the London underground, but the pushing in Tokyo didn’t seem aggressive, and those who were pushed didn’t get upset. It just seemed to be the way busy trains were filled in the rush hour.

My favourite train was the Shinkansen, the bullet train.  So clean, so spacious, and all the seats faced the direction of travel (so no need for the sick bag). The train had so many carriages I found myself wondering how it turned around at the other end, but whilst waiting to embark one day the train answered my question as we witnessed the seats pivot a full 180 to face the opposite way.  Amazing!

Let’s not forget the special trains. Japan has more ‘posh trains’ than you can shake a stick at, and we were lucky enough to see a few of them on our travels, including the Twilight Express, the Mizukaze, which you can read more about here. Definitely one for the bucket list.

Here are some of the train-related questions I had before our trip and their answers (you can skip this part if you’re not considering a trip to Japan).

Do I need to pre-book Shinkansen tickets?

Yes and no.  If you want certain seats (like a Mount Fuji view, which are seats D and E on the Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka / Osaka-Kyoto-Tokyo train) you can book a few days in advance, but if you don’t mind too much where you sit you can get them on the day.  We tried both options and both worked fine (and we saw Mount Fuji from the train window, what a magnificent mountain). 

You can buy bullet train tickets at the train stations from which they operate, look for the Shinkansen ticket desk or JR Shinkansen ticket machines.  If you’re buying from the ticket machines, you’ll need an IC card like Pasmo or Suica (both can be downloaded as apps on your phone) pre-loaded with electronic currency to pay.

BUT, if you like things booked in advance and don’t mind paying a booking fee of £10 per ticket you can use the Klook app to buy tickets and pay with your credit card in your local currency then just collect the tickets at the station using a QR code.

Can I take my large suitcase on the bullet train?

Your large suitcases will fit in front of you by your feet or on the overhead rack, providing the total length + width + depth of the case doesn’t exceed 160cm and it’s not over 30kg in weight.  Our suitcases were large cases of 23kg and were 78cm in length, 48cm in width and 28cm in depth, so they were perfect.  If your cases are bigger than this, you’ll need to book seats with the oversized baggage area. 

The green car is the first-class car, but if you’re wanting to keep your suitcases by your feet, you’re better off booking the standard class as they green car seats have a foot rest that make this a but trickier.

How do I get subway tickets?

You can use the IC cards like Pasmo or Suica loaded to your phone with pre-paid currency like you would use a credit card or oyster card on the underground.  We intended to do this, but when we got there, we found we could also use Japanese Yen, and we ended up buying our tickets in cash each time we made a journey.  If we changed our mind about the stop when were on the train and wanted to go further, we could go to a ‘fare adjustment’ ticket machine at the station and add the extra on.  It may have been easier if we’d purchased a 24-hour subway ticket now that I think about it, but we were never quite sure how much we’d walk and how much we’d use the subway, so paying on a journey basis worked for us.  The subway is really cheap to use.

Saving the best for last: those musical toilets

Where do I start?  Well firstly, they were everywhere, which for someone like me who a) needs the toilet a lot and b) has the tendency to panic when not knowing if there’s a toilet nearby, this was game changing.  They were in the tube stations, on train platforms, in the gaming arcades, at the temples, in shops.  There was a plethora of toilets.  And these weren’t any old toilets, oh no.  Heated toilet seats!  If you think this sounds weird, try using a heated toilet seat for two weeks and then come home and sit on some stone-cold porcelain, tell me which is better.  Many of them played music or a cute little gurgling noise to give you an extra bit of privacy.  I visited one in a department store that even had a small television screen.  They had more buttons than I knew what to do with, and a variety of squirting options for a thorough cleansing.  They flushed on their own, and most of the time they tended to be blissfully clean.  All of them had toilet paper, all of them locked, and it was clear from the outside on every toilet door I encountered if they were occupied or not: green for vacant, red for locked (why on earth do we even have public toilet doors where you can’t tell if the door is locked or not from the outside?)  Imagine going out for the whole day and knowing you never needed to worry about finding a toilet.  Amazing.

This probably isn’t where you thought I’d start my Japan travel diaries, but I like to keep you guessing.  Come back next week for my second instalment (if I haven’t scared you away with my futuristic toilet worshiping).

Santa, this year for Christmas I would very much like a musical toilet