Japan Day 5: Completing the Tokai Region

Today is the day that I have planned to go to Hamamatsu to go to the Suzuki History Museum (Suzuki Plaza). I had booked my shinkansen ticket on Tuesday and had to be on that at 08:03. I set my alarm for 6:45 to wake up at 7. I did wake up and managed to have a shower. 

I left the hotel room at 07:40 and with roughly 20 min to get to Tokyo Station and find the platform (I figured I could walk though the train to find my seat). I got on the train at Okachimachi, I texted mum saying that I have 10 min to get on my shinkansen. I arrived at Tokyo station putting on quite a fast walk I made it to the shinkansen. It departed 2 minutes later. 

On the bullet train I was a little bit tired still as I usually would wake up at about 8. I put some effort into writing day 3’s blog. But really got distracted by taking photos of Mt. Fuji. The weather has been surprisingly clear whilst I have been in Japan and unlike previous trips I have not needed an umbrella, other than being cold it has been really nice, on top of that I don’t mind wearing jackets at all. 

The shinkansen arrived at Hamamatsu around 09:30, I spent a bit of time walking around hamamatsu station. They had a Suzuki Alto on display when we went in 2019 dad  loved admiring the different cars that they have on display in Japanese stations. Other than that there was a grocery store in the station, for the most part it was pretty quiet and not much is open at 9:30 in the morning. 

The local Tokaido line train to Takatsuka Station left Hamamatsu Station at 10:00 and I arrived a couple of minutes later. I looked on Apple Maps for where the nearest 7/11 was as I needed to have a coffee. It was around the corner. 

On the way from the 7/11 to the Suzuki museum I saw a Japanese petrol station, it had enthusiastic attendants like in the Race Across Japan episode of Top Gear (the thing that sparked my interest in Japan and Japanese). 

The Suzuki Museum was utterly amazing. On the second floor they went through the design process, to testing and engineering as well as the production line. The third floor had different types of Suzuki cars and bikes through history as well as their looms. Please see below for some photos. 

It was interesting to see some of the parallels between the design and development of cars and the design and development of software, the main difference being that the productionisation process is quite different. I often hear about techniques such as Kanban from Toyota being used in a software development context and the process at Suzuki seems to be in a similar light. 

I finished at the Suzuki museum at around about 13:30, I bought a souvenir for dad and myself of course. I walked back to Takatsuka Station and got on an Tokaido Line train to Bentenjima. 

Bentenjima is an island within Lake Hamana which is my favourite section of the shinkansen. Before I departed from Japan I was researching this area because it looked cool. I had a hamburger from an american dinner by Lake Hamana. I was considering before coming to Japan renting a bike and seeing some of the sights of lake Hamana, but alas it was quite windy and I didn’t feel comfortable enough with Japanese road rules to get on a bike. Though I did walk a section over a couple of bridges which was quite cool. In someways it felt like walking down Nepean Highway past Moordialloc however there was a high speed train line next to us. 

I got back on the train at Araimachi, I wasn’t waiting long for the train. I got this to Toyohashi where I changed for a Kodama (local) Shinkansen in the direction of Nagoya because the trains to Tokyo were an hour wait. I didn’t have long to board the shinkansen at Toyohashi. 

I had roughly 20 min at Nagoya, I made a seat reservation with an attendant and then went outside of the ticket gates to buy a Tokai Region IC card called a Toica. This is my 4th IC card with others coming from different regions in Japan. 

The shinkansen back to Tokyo took about an hour and 45 minutes, I was sitting in an aisle seat and wrote a blog post. There was a person who was sitting next to me who was obviously travelling on business. As we were approaching Tokyo Station I had a small chat with him. 

At Tokyo Station, I exited through the Nihombashi exit which made me want to find the Nihombashi Bridge. It is the place were a lot of the transport challenge videos that I watch begin and is traditionally the centre of the Tokyo and therefore much of Japan’s road network. 

I decided that seeing as the importance of this bridge the only thing that I could do was at the Nihombashi bridge sign was to prey in traditional Japanese style. 

I walked back down Chuo Street to Kanda and then got on the train to Okachimachi so that I could go back to the hotel to call my mum. 

I did go back out after this looking at some of the different technology shops in Akihabara, like Yodobashi and Bic Cameras. I got a can of Asahi Zero to have back in the hotel. 

Today was a good day, I had travelled a long way on the Shinkansen and hopefully made my JR pass worth while. 

To be continued…