Tokyo to Sendai (by Patrick)

We had decided that one night in Tokyo would be enough for us to recover from the jet-lag and get safely to Sendai. To be honest, our night and next morning in Tokyo was and still is a bit of a blur. However, one thing you should think about if you are traveling with lots of cases is a service called "Takuhaibin”, basically for a fee you can have your luggage transferred to your next destination from the hotel (remember to pack an overnight bag). It cost us 6,000Y to send the 4 large suitcases (and they were in our hotel room in Sendai when we arrived there).

Oh, forgot to mention that when we got through customs at the airport my wife went to pick up our bullet train tickets (Shinkansen) as we had also ordered these in advance, from the JR-EAST desk (located one floor down from where you exit). So after checking out of the hotel we made our way to Tokyo’s main railway station – wow, what a place. It was buzzing with people, food places and shops. We went to a tiny little café for a coffee so we could take it all in; the smells were enticing and complex, the people purposeful and the surroundings fascinating. Anyway, back to our journey – I have to be honest and say I thought we would be stopping every few steps and asking someone where we need to go, what platform do we need and so on. But to my surprise we were on the Shinkansen without asking for any assistance. Everything may not be explained in English (well in detail) but it is all very logical, the signs, the platforms, and the carriage you need to get on and even a line where to start queuing to get on.

The journey was great. Fast, comfortable and relaxing. We were in Sendai, which is 366km from Tokyo, in just under 90 minutes.