Hi… Sitting in the airport in Hong Kong. Flight a little delayed. Figured I’d write something here while killing time!!
Anpanman Train!! Love how some of the trains here are totally decked out in cartoon characters! All the serious business people getting on and being shouted at by a cartoon super hero!
Anyway, we said goodbye to Beppu and the hot springs, got on another train and headed down to Kochi in Shikoku. Our plan worked well as Rachel hopped on the train at Hiroshima, so we were all connected back up again.
It was pretty spectacular going over the massive bridges.
All the structures seem impossibly huge!
Here is a little tip for those planning a trip to Japan. The JR Rail Pass is no longer quite the deal it used to be. So research carefully before spending the money.
The tickets went up by a significant amount. A week’s ticket used to be about $300 .. it’s now $500. The two week ticket jumped from $500 to $800.
You are yet to see the full extent of our travels, but we did get the 2 week JR pass and it was barely better value than just buying tickets as we went. (I’m talking only $40 cheaper) But it did make it more convenient… Plus we did do a couple of small side trips with it too.
The JR West web page is brilliant. You can just plug in the places you want to go from and to (I used random dates at first just to get an idea on times and prices). It will give you 3 different travel options, exact prices and times and station changes etc etc. that way you can do the math and work out if it’s better with a pass or not.
Train travel is really easy, convenient and insanely punctual.
Its also relaxing to sit back and enjoy the scenery
Overall places like Shikoku and Kyushu are much better explored at leisure with a vehicle, but that’s not how we decided to go.
Anyway, I’ll go upload a few more pics and see if I can pop another post up before boarding. Next leg will be around 9 hours.
xx
