I caught the train back to Tokyo today, once again in Gran Class. Here’s the entire car:
And here’s my seat:
The seats are extremely adjustable, and can nearly full recline. They also have active suspension, so you don’t feel all the usual bumps of train travel. To say they are comfortable is understatement, and I’ll admit I slept a bit during the 4.5 hour journey from Hakodate to Ueno.
The friendly attendant kept offering me food and drink (there were only me and one other person in the car for most of the trip) and I kept saying I was ok, but eventually I asked for some juice and she gave me this very tiny can of apple 🙂
The view was like this for much of the way, which I’ve many times mentioned I love. Of course there’s also an undersea tunnel connecting Honshu and Hokkaido, and now I’ve gone through it in both directions! At its deepest the tunnel is 240 m below sea level, and it takes about 20 minutes to pass through. It’s the longest underwater tunnel in the world!
Interestingly the tunnel has two stations in it (yes, underwater) that are no longer used but remain for potential evacuation purposes. Before the Shinkansen ran the route and they sent ‘normal’ trains through the tunnel they used to stop at the stations for tourist purposes!
When we got to Ueno I noticed the train had gained a ‘friend’ at some point and where I originally had been in the last car there was now an entire additional train attached to the back 🙂
My final thoughts on Gran Class: the comfort level is astounding, and I’d love to be able to fly in such a seat all the way home. But it’s also true that Gran Class is very expensive. Converted to USD, the return fare from Tokyo to Hakodate was about $150, and the Gran Class upgrade was about $450 extra, which means I paid four times a normal ticket. It also takes longer and costs much more than flying! But for the experience, I’m absolutely happy I did it, and if you ever have the option I’d suggest considering it as well.
I’m staying in Akihabara now for the remainder of this vacation, and I’ve got a typically tiny room that I’ll be comfy in. I’ll be focusing on shopping and game centers anyway and only using the room for packing and sleeping!
Speaking of game centers, I finally got myself to Takadanobaba to visit the second Mikado retro arcade (the other is in Ikebukuro and I blogged about it last year). This one is smaller, with a basement full of pinball machines – a very rare sight in Japan – and a second floor full of mostly obscure shoot-em-ups. It’s rare I see an arcade shooter I’ve not heard of and today about half these games were new to me.
I played several games, and had a flip though one of their guest books. These are always fun, and sometimes I feel people spend more time drawing in them than actually playing games 🙂
Lunch was Kura, and I sat at the counter between two tiny Japanese women who each ate multiples of what I did. Their tempura shrimp nigiri is so good, although I need to return to Sushiro to have some hamburger sushi again before I leave.
Then it was back to Akihabara for a bit of night shopping. I bought stuff, saw more stuff I may buy, and saw even more stuff I’d love to buy but for various reasons can’t, like this cocktail Qix cab:
Isn’t it amazing that’s just sitting there in a shop and can be yours for only $3500! Sights like this is one of the reasons I love Akihabara so much 🙂