Saturday, October 20, 2007

Hikari-shinkansen pulling into Tokyo station

The JR Rail Pass is an excellent deal for people traveling around in Japan; the popular trip Tokyo - Kyoto - Tokyo is more expensive than an one-week JR pass. Besides, you can also get comfortably around in Tokyo by JR without using the expensive Metro.

One nitpick is that the JR Rail Pass is not valid on Nozomi shinkansen, the fastest trains between Tokyo and Osaka. This was fine until a couple of years ago when the second fastest connection, the Hikari shinkansen, were plentiful and the Nozomi much more expensive.  Now that the  circumstances have changed and the number of Hikari has been reduced and the Nozomi are plentiful and about the same price as the Hikari, maybe it is time that JR looks into this JR Rail Pass restriction again.

It is of course hardly a problem for the people traveling exactly between Tokyo and Nagoya, Kyoto or Osaka who can decide themselves what time they show up at the station, but it starts to get a bit of a problem when coming from the countryside by train and have to wait for more than an hour to be able to get on your connection.

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO