Travel tale: Japan's Bullet Train |
If you think of train rides as Amtrak’s tiresome, smoky, jerky, never-on-time ordeals, put a trip to Japan on your itinerary and experience the bullet train. They sail along at 160 miles an hour, and better than flights that dump you in far-from-city airports, the Shinkansen takes you from downtown Tokyo to downtown of every major Japanese city. And also unlike Amtrak and all airlines, they depart and arrive exactly on the minute their schedules promise.
For non-Japanese -speaking visitors, all station and on-train instructions are printed in several languages, including English. Also, at ticket offices all the employees speak English, with some who can communicate in several languages. |