Of course once your onboard, you don't notice the speed at which you're travelling, it felt rather like a normal train. When you actually see the train from a distance you realise it is zipping by at 300 kph! The 700 series train, on which we were on, tops out at 300kph, one thing you do notice, when it is on a curve, the curve is banked, so the train actually tilts sideways! Simple physics will tell you the inclined curve is needed to keep the train on the track... whatever, it's really cool.
Less cool were the seats, sitting in economy while 'first class' is only a few thousand yen more was rather upsetting. The seats rank down there with Singapore Airlines economy seats 10 years ago, but with slightly more leg room. Since the ride was short, the journey was bearable, even with the odd japanese salaryman noisly enjoying his bento box lunch, slurping up his udon and fermented squid guts.
The Suntory office is in Yamazaki, a wonderfully old, mist-covered, little village on the outskirts of Kyoto, set against a beautiful hill covered in luscious green bamboo, dripping with rain. We sat in the Suntory board room overlooking this amazing vista (think: 'crouching tiger hidden dragon'... yeah baby) and had our bento box lunch... thankfully, no squid guts.
The meeting dragged on till 3pm, when it ended we took a taxi back to the Yamazaki station and a slow train back into Kyoto. While the weather was rainy and grey it gave that little village a wonderful atmosphere, I felt like I was in a time warp, half expecting to see ronin samurai roaming the misty cobbled streets.
Heading back to Tokyo was rather more enjoyable, I had an empty seat next to me, so I stretched out and plugged in my iPod, looked out the window on the same grey, dreary, rainy evening and soul searched to the crooning of Bob Seger, Dan Fogelberg and later on the Eagles.
Next thing I knew it was 7pm, I was getting off the train at rainy Shinagawa, into a cab and home... all in a day's work.
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