Japan - Slow travel
65 images Created 1 May 2016
Tokyo to Kyoto to Tokyo
3-6 April 2014
Text by Androniki Christodoulou
I live in Tokyo where the pace of everyday life is fast. People run to go to work in the morning, they travel in fast trains and when a trip outside the city is required, they take the Shinkansen, the so-called "bullet train" (max speed 270km/h). Time is money and people don't want to "waste" it. The faster the better. You can calculate your daily activities by the minute and you expect that things will go on schedule. Some times I miss the slow pace of living in countries like Greece where I come from, where daily activities are not scheduled so tightly and there is always time to take a break having a coffee or lunch with a friend. I grew up thinking that it is more important to enjoy everyday life and human relationships than just running after career and money.
I knew for some time about the "seishun 18 kippu", a cheap train ticket that allows unlimited traveling with local trains (ex. Tokaido line: max speed 120km/h) around Japan for 5 days and I wanted to try it. It is actually a set of 5 24hour tickets that can also be shared among people traveling together. Within each traveling day, it is possible to get on and off trains as many times as you want, to visit places along the way.
In April 2014, I embarked on a "seishun 18 kippu" 4-day train trip together with a female friend. Our final destination was Kyoto. We prepared our schedule with the many trains we had to change on the way and started traveling from Shinjuku station.
It took two days of travelling to reach Kyoto as we also deviated from the direct route in order to visit a Zen monastery in Obama city.
The way back took us about nine hours. We left after lunch and changed many trains with only a short stop for buying drinks and snacks. It was the last day of a three-day holiday and many people were traveling. We guessed that some were like us as they were also running from train to train trying to catch some empty seats.
Most of the route between Tokyo and Kyoto is on "Tokaido main line" (functioning between Tokyo and Kobe). "Tokaido" was the name of the most important route connecting Tokyo and Kyoto during the Edo period (1603-1868). There used to be one train running along all the route, but now it is broken to parts and travelers have to go through many transfers. It is expected that a normal traveller would use the much faster Shinkansen that covers the Tokyo to Kyoto distance in about two and a half hours. Our time was a well worth trade though, for our slow travel let us experience the changes along the route, the local people, and ourselves in a moving meditation. Something that the comfort of the Shinkansen couldn't offer us with the trains filled with the same salarymen we see everyday in the city and no time to enjoy the passing landscapes because of the speed or the protective walls along its tracks.
3-6 April 2014
Text by Androniki Christodoulou
I live in Tokyo where the pace of everyday life is fast. People run to go to work in the morning, they travel in fast trains and when a trip outside the city is required, they take the Shinkansen, the so-called "bullet train" (max speed 270km/h). Time is money and people don't want to "waste" it. The faster the better. You can calculate your daily activities by the minute and you expect that things will go on schedule. Some times I miss the slow pace of living in countries like Greece where I come from, where daily activities are not scheduled so tightly and there is always time to take a break having a coffee or lunch with a friend. I grew up thinking that it is more important to enjoy everyday life and human relationships than just running after career and money.
I knew for some time about the "seishun 18 kippu", a cheap train ticket that allows unlimited traveling with local trains (ex. Tokaido line: max speed 120km/h) around Japan for 5 days and I wanted to try it. It is actually a set of 5 24hour tickets that can also be shared among people traveling together. Within each traveling day, it is possible to get on and off trains as many times as you want, to visit places along the way.
In April 2014, I embarked on a "seishun 18 kippu" 4-day train trip together with a female friend. Our final destination was Kyoto. We prepared our schedule with the many trains we had to change on the way and started traveling from Shinjuku station.
It took two days of travelling to reach Kyoto as we also deviated from the direct route in order to visit a Zen monastery in Obama city.
The way back took us about nine hours. We left after lunch and changed many trains with only a short stop for buying drinks and snacks. It was the last day of a three-day holiday and many people were traveling. We guessed that some were like us as they were also running from train to train trying to catch some empty seats.
Most of the route between Tokyo and Kyoto is on "Tokaido main line" (functioning between Tokyo and Kobe). "Tokaido" was the name of the most important route connecting Tokyo and Kyoto during the Edo period (1603-1868). There used to be one train running along all the route, but now it is broken to parts and travelers have to go through many transfers. It is expected that a normal traveller would use the much faster Shinkansen that covers the Tokyo to Kyoto distance in about two and a half hours. Our time was a well worth trade though, for our slow travel let us experience the changes along the route, the local people, and ourselves in a moving meditation. Something that the comfort of the Shinkansen couldn't offer us with the trains filled with the same salarymen we see everyday in the city and no time to enjoy the passing landscapes because of the speed or the protective walls along its tracks.
