Monday and an early start for
us.Down at the restaurant at 0715 for
breakfast.It only opened at 0700 but already was more than half
full.It was a National holiday-Respect for the Aged
day.About 0830 headed down to get a taxi to the
station.As we arrived at the platform for the shinkansen I realised I had left my good camera in our
room.29 minutes until our
train.Ran down the stairs,got a cab back to the Westin,up in the first lift to floor 26 to reception.3 agents all checking someone
out.The woman finishes with her guest,quickly authorises a new key for our
room.Up in the second
lift.Get my
camera.The lift back to reception stops at nearly every
floor.The woman agent is standing in the corridor to collect my key and rapidly down to street level and taxi back to the station.Arrive with 12 minutes to go so time to
relax.After that everything else would be a breeze.....maybe.
It was an uneventful ride on the Hayabusa shinkansen but we found out why 2 trains were coupled.Earlier in the morning saw this out of our window-
.
When our train rolled into Sedai it had the same configuration-
.
.
North of Sendai the trains were uncoupled and the front section set off inland as an express and we continued north as the
shinkansen.Now the ritual leg shot-
.
I tried to take some shots of the countryside but a lot of the journey was in
tunnels.But here is some typical Japanese country scenes-
.
.
It got very smoky at one stage-
.
.
.
.