My lack of inter railing experience in my twenties is obviously a sign I did not misspend my youth nearly enough. I am making up for it now my touring japan by train with a husband and four children. In some ways it might be more difficult but not doing it on a shoestring like a student has advantages too. Like getting taxis rather than hauling bags on public transport to train stations.

We took two taxis to the train station and never thought to split up the tickets so Laura, Emma and myself arrived at a huge train station, to no sign of the others and no idea what train we were getting. I was considering going in to the station to find a pay phone to call Nigel, mine phone got broken in Laos, when Nigel found us. Lesson learnt there.

I was really looking forward to the bullet train. Because of the way it is built it doesn’t feel fast at all. I needed to look at the gps tracking on Nigel’s phone to be convinced to the speed.

Food on Japanese trains was very japanese and limited to cold bento boxes. Next time we will eat before we get on.

The highlight of the journey though was the wonderful view of Mt Fuji. I was on the wrong side and thought I had missed the good view when the mountain came back into view on a lovely clear day.