Day 14 - Kyoto

This morning Kyle and I got up early whilst Maureen and Sky managed to get a sleep-in. Our early rise was required to enable us to finally do something aeronautic on this holiday, notwithstanding our flights here of course. We were off to Hamamatsu, or the Hamamatsu Air Park to be exact, and it's only a leisurely 220+ kilometres from Kyoto. In fact, it's actually past our next destination, Nagoya, and probably a third of the way to Tokyo from here. Even better was that I got the opportunity to try out the new camera. All photos, except one in today's Blog were taken with the new Nikon.

Our route today, and return.

Waiting for the Shinkansen Kodama 638 service.

I love these aerodynamic features on the Shinkansen.

A shinkansen arrives at Platform 11.

Our 700 Series Shinkansen arriving at Kyoto Station.

After walking to the station we caught the Shinkansen, this time it was a 700 Series, not our usual N700 Series we have travelled on to date. It's the little things that I notice. 

(Not my photo) This is the difference, just in case you were wondering.

The Shinkansen we took was the Kodama service which is the slowest of the Shinkansen services that operate on the Tokaido line (Tokyo to Osaka) as it stops at all stations. The trip took around one hour and 40 minutes to get to Hamamatsu Station. Along the way, we covered fine weather, cloudy, light rain and light snow in seemingly short succession.

Onboard the Shinkansen, which was pretty empty at the start of the journey, but gradually all seats were filled.

Some of the weather along the way.

On arrival, it was bloody freezing. We walked to the nearby bus terminal and caught the 51 bus to Izumiyonchrome Bus Stop, which seemed like it was in the middle of an industrial area. However, after a short and fairly straightforward 750 metre walk, we found our way to the Air Park Japan Air Self-Defence Force (JASDF) Hamamatsu Air Base Museum, or Airpark for short.

Our bus arrives at Hamamatsu Bus Station

The trek to the Airpark

On arrival we were greeted with this cool vending machine.

The Airpark is essentially a public relations arm of the JASDF, and a pretty good one at that. It caters for all ages, with great simulators for kids, lots of educational displays and videos (though all in Japanese) and plenty of aircraft on display, many of which we were allowed to sit in. Of particular interest to me were the front-line JASDF fighter aircraft, the Mitsubishi F-1 and F-2, though the F-2 was a mock-up (i.e. not real, but full sized and looks real). Then there were the older classic aircraft such as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, Fuji T-1 (Japan's first Jet-powered trainer aircraft), North American F-86 Sabre and Lockheed T-33, which were amazing. The aircraft were predominantly on display indoors, with a few out door displays as well. I was a tiny bit disappointed not to see an F-4 Phantom, but they are still in service with the JASDF until next year. The other disappointment was that being a Sunday, there was no actual flying being conducted by the JASDF, noting that the Museum sits right by the main runway at Hamamatsu Air base.

This Mitsubishi F-1 fighter had lots of panels removed so the public could check out the 'insides'.

Models of all of the JASDF fleet, all aircraft were in 1:32 scale. 

Cute simulators.

The main display hangar.

Kyle sits in the cockpit of a Mitsubishi F-1 fighter.

I got to sit in a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

I was trying to recreate my Facebook cover photo; however, I couldn't get close enough to the aircraft.

You wouldn't believe how hard it was to set up this photo. A 20 second time delay for the photo, and Kyle bolts into the front cockpit, failing to press the shutter button.

We had a great time walking around the aircraft and we were in our element. Some of the cute things they have on offer were flying suits for people to hire as they walk around the aircraft, every size from little kids (almost babies) through to adults. We saw small families all decked out in flying suits, doing saluting poses in front of the aircraft. They also had a small cafeteria and I lacked the will-power to resist buying a Sundae on Sunday, though I think that this is the first Sundae that I have ever had that included Corn Flakes, so crazy that I think it actually worked.

I rate the museum quite highly and it seemed to be very popular with the public. The best part; however, was that entry was completely free.

Afterwards, we reversed our walk and bus ride back to Hamamatsu Station and had lunch before walking up to the platform to await our train. 

Walking back to the Bus Stop. 

A beautiful garden between Hamamatsu Station and the Bus Station.

Whilst waiting for our train at Hamamatsu Station, two express Shinkansen passed by at high speed; however, each time, they caught us completely unaware, so we never got a photo or video of the event. There are four Shinkansen tracks at Hamamatsu Station, the two outer service the platforms, whilst the centre two are for the express trains that don't stop here. Interestingly, as the train is on a very slight bend, the centre two tracks are banked at an angle, making the fast passes seem even more impressive.

Looking closely, you can see the two centre tracks are banked at an angle.

For the return to Kyoto, we caught the Shinkansen Hikari service. The Hikari service is a medium express service that stops at a few stations along the way, but by-passes many others. The fastest Shinkansen service on the Tokaido line is the Nazomi with the least number of stops. It covers Tokyo to Osaka (515 kilometres) in just two hours and 12 minutes. Our trip back to Kyoto took only one hour and nine minutes.

Our train after arriving at Kyoto Station.

When we got back we headed to the apartment and then headed out to dinner at 7-Eleven, yep no kidding. I mentioned 7-Eleven a number of blogs ago and promised an explanation. Before I get to that, Kyle headed out to dinner with some of Jen's cousins who happen to be here. Back to 7-Eleven.

Japan has more 7-Eleven stores than anywhere else in the world. Of the 66,579 stores around the globe, 20,392 stores (31 percent of global stores) are in Japan, with 2,665 stores in Tokyo alone. Comparing 7-Eleven in Japan with those in Australia is really comparing chalk and cheese. In Australia, 7-Elevens get crowded on free Slurpee Day, whereas in Japan, they are always busy. 

7-Eleven Japan sell an amazing range of food, lot's of which is locally produced, microwaveable, reasonably priced and genuinely quite delicious. They sell Beer, Wine, Sake, Single-Malt Whiskey, Champagne, there's also fresh Sushi, Bento Boxes, Ongiri (rice triangles wrapped in Seaweed) fresh sandwiches, Ramen, the list goes on and on. Tonight we had a Cheese and Prawn Rice Casserole, Udon Noodles with Pork, Battered Chicken with Rice and a Lobster Bisque, and we had it in the store, and it was all delicious. 

Also, their customer service is also impeccable and the staff are always very friendly. I'd recommend getting all of your meals at 7-Eleven if you are visiting Japan, even though we have chosen a much wider variety of food outlets in our travels. So, that's the low-down on 7-Eleven.

Well that's today done and dusted. Tomorrow we have another full day here in cold Kyoto where the forecast says cloudy, periodically clear.