Japan Day 4

Day 4

Today, we leave Nikko for the metropolitian city of Tokyo. Or to be more specific, Shinjukiu. It was a mad rush to get on our trains on time again (we're always late or something), to i had no photos during that journey.

The train down to the major train interchange was much faster than when we went to nikko, as this time the train was constantly going down hill.

Back on the Shinkansen, i realised how fast the train accelerates and how easily it slows down. You know, you'd expect trains to be slow at these things.


Finally, pictures of the shinkansen.

They used a different gauge (type of) railway from other trains, thus the shinkansen cant use the normal railway lines. They also had this inverted L shape barriers to keep the noise level down.

The trains system is really different from singapores. They can have 16 car trains that split at certain stations later in the journey to go to different places.

The double deck bullet trains, joined together.

The trains look so awesomely cool.

The bullet train doesnt go at their constant top speed, it kinda of slows to around 100km/h once it reaches the built up areas near tokyo. Kinda of frustrating seeing the normal trains match your speed on the bullet trains.

There are also different ways that trains in tokyo accelerate, some have powered cars at the front and back of the trains, thus theres a jerking acceleration when u sit in the middle cars, whereas the newer trains are all powered cars, thus acceleration is smooth, like in our own MRT.

Back in Tokyo, we changed to the orange line to our final destination, the tourist shopping district of shinjukiu.


Tokyo!

Their inefficient gate system, where people with special passes (like 4 day unlimited passes that we bought, for example) needed to show the tickets to the people before they open the gates for you. i mean like, why cant we just put that in the machine and be done with it.

Im in love with curved train stations.

more joint trains.


Their trains always arrived and left on the dot.

I think our trains are actually wider than theirs.

and have more hand rails.


the train station is huge.

Really different styles of dressings in japan.

Strewn all around and more abundant than rubbish. Porn books. haha. this pic wasnt edited at all. by chance the surrounding was all grey.

First sight of the "real" streets of japan.

the really crowded busstop.

They have random fire extinguishers on the streets.

weird looking bike.

this road only opens at night.

the taxi lightly crashed into the bike, then when the driver went to apologise he got threatened by this other guy. (the guy held the poor old man by his neck and pinned him to his taxi)

there were so many people using bicycles as transport. Even if they were dressed in suits and what not.

and there were tons of cute dogs.

male hos. nasty.

more ramen for lunch.

imagine your hand on the handle bar. The crows there are really huge.

their parking lot. A clever concept where by when you didnt pay enough, you cant drive off as the metal things will pop up and your wheels cant drive over it.

bikes were everywhere.

they had a ton of small streets too. and small houses.

and a lot more of these.

the shinjukiu national park. Didnt get to go there cuz we just didnt have enough time for it. :(

thats a tree trunk btw.

large spiders.



saw a lot of these too.

lots of people just guarding some lame entrance.

night starts to descend.

the streets starts to get crowded.

accidentally walked in on one of their cemetaries too, its actually really nice, as in. gah, but i dont feel right taking pictures so...

more train platforms..

tons of people everywhere.

a hell lot of them.

Got to our hotels, then started walking around a bit. Then later that night, me and my mom went to take the train to Tokyo to check the place out.

Turns out that it isint as messy as shinjukiu. Not as many buildings too. Maybe we were in the wrong part of tokyo thats why.



tokyo.

really wide crossings.

different lines at same platforms.

this orange line had 4 platforms. not sure whats the diff really..

inside tokyo interchange.


During this side trip we got a better understanding of how the train stations work and turns out it isint as messy as we first thought. Whats really amazing though is how they manage so many different train routes using the same train tracks and switches. Amazing.


10 car trains are the norm, compared to our meager 6 car trains.

its rare that you get to see so many platforms empty. Every second there would be at least 2 trains at the station.

MAC!

oh yeah, people do busk there too. but not for money.

we saw a lot of cyclist just cutting the road intersections like there were no cars at all. totally crazy. i'd recon they were going at 30km/h lah, just weaving in and out of traffic.

I do realise the only reason why our train network is the "first in the world to be totally autonomous" is because the lines are so uncomplicated.Compared to the train system in other countries, singapore's train lines are peanuts. No achievement here at all.

Found a new and faster way to walk back to our hotels that night. and japanese male youngsters really look like gangsters. yup. thats day 4.


finally, some sushi. i still prefer the sushi in singapore.

watched sumo too. totally addictive.

the guy on top just kept owning everyone with ease lah.