Tips for Traveling

Bullet train, called "shinkansen" is the fastest train in Japan. It's very useful for traveling in Japan because it covers a number of areas. It connects Tokyo with different places. You can even make a one-day trip to Kyoto from Tokyo by taking Shinkansen.

>> Types of Shinkansen

Here I introduce the different types of Shinkansen which connect Tokyo with Hakata. There are many major stations, such as Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, and Hiroshima, on this line.

NOZOMI	Today's fastest shinkansen. It also runs most often. You can't use JR Pass for this train.
HIKARI	This is the second fastest. Each HIKARI stops different stations, so you should probably check the stations to stop.
KODAMA	This is a local type of shinkansen. You shouldn't take this one when traveling long distance as it stops every station for shinkansen.

>> Types of Seats on Shinkansen

There are different types of seats on shinkansen. Choose the best type for you, referring to the chart below.

You can buy tickets for these seats (including the seats with reservation necessary) at the authorized sales offices or from the ticket machines.

Green	Green seats are the special seats on Green Cars (usually 3 out of 16 cars of shinkansen). All of these seats need reservation. Many Japanese people don't use them because they think those seats are too expensive.
Reserved Seats	Most of shinkansen cars hold reserved seats. You need to pay extra fare (300-800 yen/ $2.5-7) to make a seat reservation.
Non-Reserved Seats	1-3 cars of NOZOMI, 1-5 cars of HIKARI, and most cars of KODAMA hold non-reserved seats. If you get on shinkansen from Tokyo, it's not hard to find non-reserved seats left.