I love a train trip -or two- or three... Beppu to Tokyo Saturday 17 Feb 24
Mr Seat 0A was up early this morning and enjoyed a swim in the hotel rooftop pool. It did look lovely, but not enough to entice me out of bed at sunrise!
Checked out, up to station and stocked up on ekiben and pastries for the long trip to Tokyo, which will take the full day - depart Beppu at 0947 and arrive at Tokyo 1712 and then connect on JR Yamanote line to Tamachi. Leg 1 was on the Sonic 18. There was only 1 empty seat in the green car on this train , but luckily we were in Seat 1 with some luggage space behind, so we managed the 2 bags you see in the photos.
Also got some photos of more electrical wiring from the platform...
First leg was about 1.5 hrs, which passed really quickly. Some nice agricultural scenery.
Mr Seat 0A used some of this time to research coffee options for our 33 minute train change at Kokura - good news was that there was a Starbucks and he managed to get to it in the break. So as we settled into our seats on Sakura 550, we had a coffee and a pastry read for morning tea. Very nice!! We stored our bags on the overhead racks on Sakura (that's why I go to the gym!)
Again, I'm not sure where the time went, but this leg was 2.5 hrs and before I knew it we had arrived in Shin Osaka for the last leg. Then it was on to Hikari 654 for the three hour run into Tokyo.
It was a beautiful sunny day and I saw a castle through the picture window at a station (don't know which one though).
We were very excited at the thought of a Fuji view, but we jinxed ourselves because the sunny blue weather quickly turned cloudy soon out of Osaka so we didn't see Fuji-San this visit. It's actually the first time we have not seen it, so not too unlucky at all really.
Decided to get off at Shinagawa as this was closer to our destination at Tamachi. Navigated a busy Saturday evening on the trains and made the familiar 10 min walk to our regular hotel, the Celestine. Checked in, unpacked and had bar snacks for dinner in the lounge. Felt like we had been grazing all day long. Quite nostalgic - our 4th stay in this hotel, and as always when we arrive in Tokyo, I know our trip is coming to an end.